Counterculture Through the Ages - Vendido!
From Abraham to Acid House
Ken Goffman and Dan Joy
Random House
History - World; Social Science - Popular Culture | Villard | Hardcover | November 2004
Rights sold to:
*** Ediouro (Brasil) ***
Fazi Editore (Italy),
Anagrama (Spain)
Book Description:
Written with his trademark humor, intelligence and irreverence, Goffman traces the idea of "counterculture" and its many manifestations from Classical times to the present. From Prometheus to Abraham; Socrates to the Zen Masters; the Sufis to the Transcendentalists; the Paris Bohemians to the Youth movement of the sixties, Goffman shows how countercultures have influenced each other and mainstream culture the world over. He concludes with a look at the latest countercultures - from the post-Hiroshima stirrings of America’s ’50s hipsters to the hedonist/nihilist countercultures of the ’70s and then the cyberpunks and anti-globalization activists of the ’90s. Goffman’s career in radical politics began in the 1960s and carried through to the ’70s when he became a Yippie and the publisher of an underground newspaper. In the ’80s he started one of the first cyber culture magazines and since then has written several books, including DESIGN FOR DYING (with Timothy Leary) and HOW TO MUTATE AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD and has written articles for "Esquire", "Time" and "Anarchy Today".
PRAISE
“In an age of corporate cool-hunting and target-marketed faux rebellion, along comes an inspirational work of scholarship to remind us of just how beyond ‘cool’ true rebels really are, and have always been. I am forever grateful to Ken Goffman for serving as my first guide through the starlit mire of countercultural thought and activity. Read this book, by all means. He knows his way around.”
–DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF, author of Cyberia, Media Virus, Ecstasy Club, and Nothing Sacred
“I read Ken Goffman’s least musings with utterly focused, indeed almost reverent attention.”
–BRUCE STERLING, author of The Zenith Angle and Tomorrow Now
“Being of the same energy field myself, I now throw a sack full of gold dust into the arena and dare anyone to be either funnier or smarter than this R. U. Sirius.”
–ANDREI CODRESCU
“This is a brilliant book. R. U. Sirius lived and created the cyberpunk culture in the 1980s. Now he and coauthor Dan Joy have written a sweeping history of countercultures through the ages, starting with the myth that still helps define our relationship with technology, that of the fire-snatching hacker Prometheus. Defying authority with creative edge has been a powerful force throughout history, and R. U. Sirius captures the magic with the authentic insight of someone who’s been a rider on that wave.”
-Walter Isaacson, former chairman and ceo of CNN, author of Benjamin Franklin: an American Life
"Edge-thinker and media rabble-rouser Ken Goffman has done us all a great service with his entertaining and enlightening book Counterculture Through the Ages. With passion and wry humor, Goffman unfurls a secret history of rebels, ranters, mystics, and bohos united by their distrust of authority. By placing more recent social struggles in this juicy (and sometimes hilarious) context, Goffman and coauthor Dan Joy reveal the deeper dimensions of our current quest for freedom and fun in a shrinking world of surveillance and control."
-Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information
About the Author:
Ken Goffman, a.k.a. R. U. Sirius, is a well-known cultural commentator and co-founder of Mondo 2000, the iconoclastic magazine that defined the digital culture of the early nineties. He is author or editor of seven books, including Mondo 2000: A User’s Guide to the New Edge and The Revolution, and co-wrote Timothy Leary’s last book, Design for Dying. He was a columnist for Artforum International and the San Francisco Examiner. He lectures internationally on subjects ranging from the implications of new technology to alternative politics. He lives in Mill Valley, California.
Dan Joy is a writer, editor, and inadvertent performance artist from San Francisco.