Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America
Sign in to keep track of books you’ve read and want to read.
Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic Americauncovers a hidden history of the biggest psychedelic distribution and belief system the world has ever known. Through a collection of fast-paced interlocking narratives, it animates the tale of an alternate America and its wide-eyed citizens: the LSD-slinging graffiti writers of Central Park, the Dead-loving AI scientists of Stanford, utopian Whole Earth homesteaders, black market chemists, government-wanted Anonymous hackers, rogue explorers, East Village bluegrass pickers, spiritual seekers, Internet pioneers, entrepreneurs, pranksters, pioneering DJs, and a nation of Deadheads.
Read more
WFMU DJ and veteran music writer Jesse Jarnow draws on extensive new firsthand accounts from many never-before-interviewed subjects and a wealth of deep archival research to create a comic-book-colored and panoramic American landscape, taking readers for a guided tour of the hippie highway filled with lit-up explorers, peak trips, big busts, and scenic vistas, from Vermont to the Pacific Northwest, from the old world head capitals of San Francisco and New York to the geodesic dome-dotted valleys of Colorado and New Mexico. And with the psychedelic research moving into the mainstream for the first time in decades, Headsalso recounts the story of the quiet entheogenic revolution that for years has been brewing resiliently in the Dead's Technicolor shadow.
Featuring over four dozen images, many never before seen-including pop artist Keith Haring's first publicly sold work-Headsweaves on of the 20th and 21st centuries' most misunderstood subcultures into the fabric of the nation's history. Written for anyone who wondered what happened to the heads after the Acid Tests, through the '70s, during the Drug War, and on to the psychedelic present, Headscollects the essential history of how LSD, Deadheads, tie-dye, and the occasional bad trip have become familiar features of the American experience.
Liked Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America? Here’s where I’d start.
These suit anyone who liked Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.
-
Jerry on Jerry: The Unpublished Jerry Garcia Interviews Shares music, grateful dead, nonfiction -
No Simple Highway: A Cultural History of the Grateful Dead Shares music, grateful dead, nonfiction -
1966: The Year the Decade Exploded Shares music, nonfiction, American history -
Conversations With The Dead: The Grateful Dead Interview Book Shares music, grateful dead, nonfiction
