The last great dream : how bohemians became hippies and created the sixties

McNally, Dennis, author.

First edition.

Book

New York, NY : Da Capo Press, 2025.

xii, 420 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Few cities represent the countercultural movement of the 1960s more than San Francisco. By that decade, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was home to several hundred colorful refugees from the conventional, self-branded "freaks" (dubbed "hippies" by the media) who created the world's first psychedelic neighborhood, an alchemical chamber for social transformation. Collectively, these freaks rejected a large part of the mythology underlying 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--humans, animals, and nature alike. ... 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 Renaissance, peaks with the Human Be-in at Golden Gate Park, and ends with the Monterey Pop Festival that introduced Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world."--Jacket.

Counterculture -- California -- San Francisco -- History -- 20th century.

Counterculture -- United States -- History -- 20th century.

Hippies -- California -- San Francisco -- History -- 20th century.

Hippies -- California -- San Francisco -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.

Hippies -- United States -- History -- 20th century.

Bohemianism -- California -- San Francisco -- History -- 20th century.

San Francisco (Calif.) -- Social life and customs -- 20th century.

Introduction -- The poets gather --The San Francisco art scene -- Los Angeles and the emigres -- Post-World War II Greenwich Village -- The Village in the '50s -- San Francisco in the early '50s -- Mainstream America and San Francisco's first resistance -- City lights, the place, and Marin -- The beats and 'howl' -- Changes become visible-civil rights and rock 'n' roll -- Baghdad by the Bay and its artists -- England awakens-skiffle and style -- Los Angles: Wallace Berman, Ferus, and Venice Beach -- New York in the late '50s -- Asian thought and America -- Four freshmen, the rise of student activism, and new options for women -- The folk scare -- The tape music center and its cohorts -- The church of Capp Street: A new culture blossoms -- The arc of the moral universde-civil rights in the south, San Francisco, and Berkeley -- London, no longer dull -- Transformation via LSD -- The Village in the mid-'60s -- Los Angeles and folk-rock -- More changes: 1965 in San Francisco and thereabouts -- The Trips Festival and what followed -- Posters and light shows and really transitional sexual politics -- London, psychedelicized -- The diggers and the Love Pagent rally -- The oracle and digger ritual -- Hippie in New York -- The be-in -- After the be-in -- Pilgrims overrun the Haight -- A new guitar hero in London-Sgt. Pepper -- Monterey Pop -- Afterword -- Acknowledgments -- Glossary of names -- Bibliography -- Notes -- Index.

9780306835667