As he explores the counterculture of the 1960s and some of the influential people and movements that help define it. The name of my book is sex, drugs and rock and roll the rise of americas 1960s counterculture. My book focuses on kind of the whole of american bohemia to a certain extent so i go back and talk about early progenitors, i talk about figures like Edgar Allen Poe and walt whitman. I talk about the lyrical left in the early 20th century, john reed, maurice bryant. I talk abouthipsters , and then i focus on the beats, the two figures of the cast of Allen Ginsberg and jack kerouac, two of the central biographical elements in this book. And then i go on and talk about Timothy Leary, ken kesey and a whole array of characters of course through the decade of the 1960s. When we think of the counterculture of the 1960s, when we think of the hippies we think of literally millions of participants in one capacity or another. And they were individuals who were disenchanted with matters as they were in some fashion. They were concerned about the greatest thing on the american body republic. And its continuance. They were deeply concerned about the war in vietnam. So those are kind of the two twin pillars in a manner of speaking. But they were also concerned about elemental issues. They were concerned about family relations. And personal dealings and sexuality. And consciousness. And rationality. And there was this coalescing of the forces, some demographic, some economic, some literary, some cultural, political in nature that melted together and provided this kind of backdrop that allowed for counterculture of the 1960s to be as large and so fullscale as it proved to be. There were several smart triggers for the counterculture of the 1960s area i think you have a backdrop of the cold war, internationally speaking and domestically unfolding simultaneously. I think you had that feeling and that reality of alienation that i referred to earlier. I think the demographics came into play, you had these large pools of young people congregating together. Often on or near College University campuses. And then you had those terrible realities, the terrible realities of racism and war and i think that enabled a large number of young people to have perspective to different possibilities and then you had the key figures like ginsburg and kerouac and leary and ken kesey but you also had the great bands of the era, you know, and the great musicians who played more sarah solitary cast from bob dylan to the beatles to the San Francisco sounds of airplane, quicksilver, grateful dead and so forth and i think that young people were drawn to messages that were being imparted. Messages of a challenging, of a probing, of a provocative path and sometimes of a radical nature. Is contesting the severities that were in place. And testing american institutions and even contesting the way people interacted with one another, the way people thought, the way they behave. Theres a very radical facet of the counterculture that i highlight. There were revolutionary possibilities, i think inherent in some of this which is why its perceived to be as dangerous as it was considered by some of the powers that were and they were treated accordingly. There are other avenues, there is the setting up of an underground press syndicate, so underground newspapers, theres new kinds of comics that are in place during this period, we think of robert crumb and Gilbert Shelton and others. The rag is the underground newspaper in boston, in the 1960s and i talked about it again in that chapter on that texas capital. And it was this incredible compendium of that publication. You can go back and look at the issues and you can get the snapshot look of so much that was going on viscvis the counterculture in other movements of the entire period. The interesting matter to reflect on and i grapple with this as best i can in the book is the question of how universal in scope and nature the counterculture proved to be because you think of the counterculture, we think of Greenwich Village in new york city, we think of haightashbury San Francisco, we think of other pockets. Above la. But the reality is that for young people to congregate, you could find c4 and then the planting of the counterculture. Which means virtually any College University, had the possibilities inherent in the facet the fact was a community of likeminded people that would be present. So for instance, one of the focal points in one of the chapters is on austin texas, the university of texas and people would kind of question why that would be included as often and the university of texas were epicenters in their own fashion for the new left, the end of war movement, for the counterculture, for the Womens Movement so i use that is kind of a microcosm examining concept, just as i focus on a and not surprisingly when you get into 1967. Earlier in scope you can talk about the appearance at Columbia University of this small circle of friends who were referred to as ginsburg and kerouac. And their buddies who were challenging the institution that was columbia and they were challenging the literary establishment. And they were questioning morlock as ginsburg referred to it. As he does in his famous epic poem howled. As kerouac does in on the road so the delivery of howl which was presented to the public for the first time in 1955, the publication of on the roadyears later , those were a couple of those little moments. And they serve as a trigger. The appearance, the emergence of the silicide and project, believe it or not which involve Timothy Leary and then eventually richard however and brought in young people to serve as kind of guinea pigs as it were. And it proved to be enormously controversial. Surprisingly, what became most controversial for the august institution that was harvard was the fact that undergraduates were included in the mix. They seemed to be okay if it werecommunity members , professors or graduate students but where harvard drew the line was undergraduates. The merry pranksters, their journey across america in the summer of 1964. They went to meet kerouac in new york city which was not a happy experience so kerouac had shifted part of the political right by that point in time. They went to meet leary and halpert at millbrook estates. Above new york city and that was not happy experience either. Leary in fact didnt even meet the pranksters even though they had gone 3000 miles for that encounter to take place. Later into the 1960s, mid 60s and the latter portion of it altogether and its almost like theres oneevent after another. There are the antiwar protests in berkeley and oakland and in the bay area in general that involved ginsburg and the pranksters and the hells angels. There are the acid tests that the pranksters put on. 66, 67. Theres the human being be in in San Francisco. Golden gate park and in january 1967. Theres the summer of love in 1967. There is woodstock. Theres out the month. Theres the unveiling of the family, the killings by Charles Manson gang. In late 1959. So again, its almost as if there were these economical points that eventually get and some folks on the better side of the angelic qualities contained within the counterculture, some spoke to the darker side. You end up with peoples own frailties and their own weaknesses and the desolation and that drug usage brings about. All the sexuallytransmitted diseases that are ushered in and then be lost lives. That were such a part of the story. You know, we think of the successes but there are those who burned out along the way. Theres this physician who died because of drop drug overdose. You think of almost in one fell swoop with janice and jimmy and them dying, janis joplin and jimi hendrix and jim morris in a matter of months. But there are countless lesser known figures who their education became stunted and their occupational possibilities became blunted, stillborn and some of the people never recovered, they never recovered because their minds didnt recover and their psyches didnt recover in their damaged relationships were not related. So theres a lot of serious aspects to the counterculture and some as i said before seemingly were of this millennial process, this possibility. Some of them seemingly reach to the stars, right . In a millennial like manner. In some ways, the apocalyptic realities that helped to dampen the hopes of how transformative this might have been. I talk about this as the close of the book, the computer revolution that weve experienced over the past few decades. The pc revolution, Silicon Valley and all. A lot of that is, believe it or not, connected with the counterculture. And part of it is pertaining to who was drawn to those kinds of pursuits. And the attempt to reach a different kind of consciousness in different ways and just as the Us Intelligence agencies and the us military helped to spawn the counterculture, believe it or not through drug tests that people like ken kesey partook of and help to stir the public about, the military is heavily involved in birthing the computer revolution, the 1970s and beyond so theres this weird kind of symbiotic relationship between the counterculture and us military and intelligence operatives but im not saying this is a conspiratorial danger, im not suggesting that. Im stating is the fact that there is this twining of these threats and thats one of the reasons why counterculture is as enduring as its been. Its often been viewed in very caricatured matters. There have been clichcs drawn about it. There have been stereotypes that have been cast around it. Its largely been dismissed and denigrated and i think it needs to be received and perceived for the serious cultural and potentially Political Force that it was. My argument is that this was a radical unfolding with revolutionary possibilities. Did the revelation play out . Certainly not in the manner that had beenhoped for by those that participated in the counterculture. I think thats obviously the case. But again, the impact nevertheless of the counterculture was huge. It remains so today. Book tv takes hundreds of author programs through the country all year long. Theres a look at some of the events we will be covering this week area monday, we will be in the Nations Capital at busboys and poets where former policy advisor and speechwriter for president bill Clinton Eric Lou will share his strategies on how citizens can become empowered. Tuesday, we are back in washington at the Brookings Institution for vanessa williamsons talk on americans attitudes toward taxes. Also that evening, we will be in fort myers florida to hear former florida congressman trey rado discussed what led him to resign from the us house of representatives area wednesday, we are off to the Kansas City Public Library where David Nichols will talk about resident Dwight Eisenhowers underground campaign against senator joseph mccarthy. That same night, we will be at the Thurber House in Columbus Ohio or former cia officer Nicholas Reynolds talk on Ernest Hemingways connections to soviet and Us Intelligence services. And next saturday, we will be live at the 50th anniversary will and atlas book festival in maryland state capital with discussions on criminal justice, income inequality and terrorism and intelligence featuring former director of the cia and the National Security agency michael hayden. Thats a look at some of the programs book tv will be covering this week, many of these events are open to the public. Look for them to air in the near future on book tv on cspan2. 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