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The Last Great Dream
How Bohemians Became Hippies and Created the Sixties
Contributors
Read by Timothy Andrés Pabon
Formats and Prices
- On Sale
- May 13, 2025
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- ISBN-13
- 9781668649701
Price
$31.99Format
Format:
- Audiobook Download (Unabridged) $31.99
- ebook $16.99 $21.99 CAD
- Hardcover $32.50 $41.00 CAD
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around May 13, 2025. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
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Few cities represent the countercultural movement of the 1960s more than San Francisco. By that decade, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was home to self-branded “freaks” (dubbed “hippies” by the media) who created the world’s first psychedelic neighborhood—an alchemical chamber for social transformation. They rejected a large part of the traditional American identity, passing over American exceptionalism, consumerism, misogyny, and militarism in favor of creativity, mind-body connection, peace, and love of all things.
The Last Great Dream is a history of everything that led to the 1960s counterculture, when long-simmering resistance to American mainstream values birthed the hippie. It begins with the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, peaks with the Human Be-in in Golden Gate Park, and ends with the Monterey Pop Festival that introduced Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world. It tells of several micro-histories, including beat poetry, visual arts, underground publishing, electronic/contemporary compositional music, experimental theater, psychedelics, and more.
Fascinating and definitive, The Last Great Dream is the ultimate guide to a generation-defining countercultural movement—an Underground 101 course for newcomers and aficionados alike.
Genre:
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“In The Last Great Dream, Dennis McNally doesn’t just chronicle a fabled parade of Beat poets, folkies, student activists, classical minimalists, jazz musicians, poster artists, the underground press, Swinging Londoners, and so much more. He connects all the dots in what amounts to a panoramic portrait of an alternative arts universe where freedom of expression always rang.”David Browne, author of "Talkin' Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America's Bohemian Music Capital"
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"Erudite yet engaging, Dennis McNally’s marvelous ability to transform reams of info on the history of bohemia into elegant prose astounds me. This deep dive into the beats and the counterculture is an illuminating page-turner."Holly George-Warren, author of "Janis: Her Life and Music"
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"You hold in your hands a great mandala—a roadmap to a literary, artistic, and spiritual tradition that began with the intimate expressions of a few brave outsiders, until it reached a mass flowering that touched millions. Graham Nash sang, 'You who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by.' This is that code, told by one who has studied it, and lived it."Raymond Foye, writer, curator, archivist, co-editor of "Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman"
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Dennis McNally's The Last Great Dream: A Celebration
Come celebrate McNally’s book on the historical cultural trends that led to the 1960s hippie era, with music, poetry, book reading and more!
Mill Valley Recreation 180 Camino Alto Mill Valley, CA 94941
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