Customer Reviews

The Hippie Trip: A Firsthand Account of the Beliefs and Behaviors of Hippies in America By A Noted Sociologist

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My my my how times change. Lewis Yablonsky's interviews and interactions (including at least one acid trip) with hippies in 1967 and 1968 make up a fascinating collection of moments, ideas and what we would now call teen angst/grunge philosophy. The book is the more interesting because it is so severely dated (and probably was by six months after its first printing). Not embarrassingly naive but pretty pie-eyed, Yablonsky's unquestioning acceptance of all the things the hippies told him makes this an entertaining period piece.

Especially interesting to me are is the total lack of references to homosexuality (still a very taboo subject in the brave new world of 1967) and the abject, almost Zen-like acceptance of "doing your own thing", whether that be your own bad trip or your own good trip or just about anything in between.

As a former Deadhead/acid user/freethinker/hippie myself I found the book very readable but not very informative. What I walked away with was a bemused feeling of how different our society is in some ways than it was in 1967.