This is a revealing look at the events and personalities that defined the Beat Generation, drawing on over three decades of research.
Beatniks: A Guide to an American Subculture gets readers past the caricature of the "beatnik" as a goateed, beret-wearing, bongo-playing poseur, drawing on extensive research to show just how profound an impact the beats had on American culture, politics, and literature.
Beatniks conveys the complexity, influences, events, and places that shaped the Beat Generation from the late 1940s to the cusp of the 1960s. The book also features a series of essays on specific aspects of the subculture, as well as interviews with Beat Generation luminaries like Allen Ginsberg, Ann Charters, Roy Harper and Michael McClure. Throughout, readers will meet an extraordinary gallery of people both famous—Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Neal Cassady—and lesser known but no less fascinating, including Kenneth Patchen, Lord Buckley, Mort Sahl, Jack Micheline, Lew Welch, Joan Vollmer Adams, and Lenore Kandel. Also included is a detailed glossary with the origins and meanings of the beat lingo.

- 212 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Series Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Timeline
- Chapter One: Narrative History: Origins of the Beat Generation
- Chapter Two: How the Beats Turned into Beatniks
- Chapter Three: The Emergence of a Beatnik Voice
- Chapter Four: Beatniks Take Manhattan, the Nation, and the World
- Conclusion
- Biographical Sketches
- Appendix A: Beats on Screen, Served on Platters
- Appendix B: Magazines That First Published Beat Generation Writers
- Appendix C: Beat Jokes and Cartoons
- Appendix D: Precursors to the Beats
- Appendix E: The Beat Progeny
- Glossary
- Primary Documents
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
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Yes, you can access Beatniks by Alan Bisbort in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Popular Culture. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.