Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World [Hardcover]

Steven D. Stark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2005

The Beatles have profoundly touched the lives of millions. But have you ever wondered why? Why did they become the most powerful artists in history and one of the twentieth century's major symbols of cultural transformation? Meet the Beatles answers those questions and more as it examines the ways the lives of John, Paul, George, and Ringo were inextricably tied to the cultural revolutions their music helped inspire. From their long hair and interest in India to their drug use and admiration for strong women, the Beatles changed the way we look, the way we feel, and even the way we think. This is the book for those who have always been infatuated with the Beatles, as well as those who want to learn for the first time what it all really meant.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Stark wants to tell the story of John, Paul, George and Ringo in a "somewhat new way," focusing as much on the cultural trends that produced the Beatles—and the trends they created—as on the Fab Four themselves. He explores how the band's 1964 arrival in America coincided with both the adolescent explosion of the baby boomers and the cultural void left by Kennedy's assassination. He then backtracks to the Beatles' childhoods in Liverpool, a city with traditions of absent fathers, strong mothers and permissive attitudes toward androgyny—all major elements in the Beatles' music. Their moptop haircuts? A combination of "mild gender-bending" and German art college chic. Their trademark wit? Inspired by the Goon Show, a popular BBC radio program. Their long-term impact? Practically impossible to overestimate, as Stark finds their influence on '60s protest movements, drug culture, women's liberation and more. Stark provides a thorough biography of the band and includes bits of trivia, such as the band's 1960 gig playing backup to a stripper. Throughout, Stark is sharp and insightful, even when he wades into the psychoanalytic waters of the John/Yoko and Paul/Linda relationships. Photos. Agent, Nat Sobel. (June 1)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In the introduction, Stark boldly asks, "Why on earth would anyone need another book about the Beatles?" He proceeds to describe his as an attempt to connect the band to "the larger cultural forces they triggered and came to represent." To that end, he expounds on the provocative premises that the Beatles feminized the culture, challenging the concept of masculinity, while Beatlemania empowered young women; that the group converged with its era in an unprecedented way, coming to embody 1960s counterculture; and that it possessed an unprecedented power over crowds. Adopting a generally chronological approach, Stark examines the Beatles' musical development as they continually reinvented themselves from their Liverpool days to their late '60s dissolution, which mirrored the collapse of the counterculture, and offers perceptive insights into their continuing appeal. Although he treads well-covered ground, Stark draws from fresh interviews with more than 100 Beatles experts and intimates and convinces us that his contribution is at least as worthy as the entire plethora of self-important insiders' memoirs and coffee-table tomes. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: HarperEntertainment (May 31, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006000892X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060008925
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #860,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Steven D. Stark is a former cultural commentator for CNN, National Public Radio, and the Voice of America, as well as the author of four books and one e-book. He has written frequently for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic Monthly, and both the Boston Globe where he was an op-ed columnist and the Montreal Gazette where he was a world sports columnist. His work often appears on the websites Real Clear Sports and Real Clear Politics. A former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, he is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. His website is at www.starkwriting.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Most Intelligent Beatles Book!, June 24, 2005

By 

Busy Reader "Pat" (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World (Hardcover)

If you are looking for a pleasurable trip down memory lane, you won't be disappointed -- and you may be suprised to find that this book is much more than that. The author is an astute observer of modern culture, and he discerns the influence of the Beatles in places I had never thought to look, particularly gender roles. And likewise his treatment of how the 60's continue to reverberate in today's world -- not just the conventional "sex, drugs and rock-and-roll" but some thought-provoking views on how the culture wars began. Hardly a hagiography, the book is unflinching in its descriptions of the Beatles' backgrounds and behavior(but never sensationalized.) Stark weaves insight and humor throughout, making it a book I found hard to put down.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A book better suited for a sociology class than a fun read, August 9, 2005

By 

Lifesamystery (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World (Hardcover)

I read this book just a few weeks after finishing "Magical Mystery Tours" by Tony Bramwell. "Meet the Beatles" made a nice, though somehwat underwhelming, compliment to Bramwell's enjoyable romp thru Beatles lore. As Stark says in the preface, his goal is to dissect why the Beatles ruled the world rather than just to rehash the "day-to-day" experiences of the Beatles as most other biographies do. He does a pretty nice job of taking specific happenings in the Beatle's history and theorizing on why they meant so much to the "boomers" entering their teenage years. He discusses how their look, humor, and song lyrics created a sense of fun,freedom, and an atmosphere of unlimited possibilities for all of us. We get a fresh analysis of why the "Sgt. Pepper" album, in spite of a few weak songs, redefined the future of albums to come. And why the eventual break up brought an entire generation back to reality.

If you are looking for the details of "Beatlemania," go with Bramwell's book. But if you are interested in a discussion of exactly why the Beatles affected us then and why they are still so popular today, this book is a decent enough read.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't Measure Up, September 23, 2005

By 

J Slott (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World (Hardcover)

While I do agree with some of the author's insights, the book for the most part doesn't live up to his own stated goals in the introduction: to tell the "why" of The Beatles phenomenon as opposed to the "what". Mr. Stark definitely wastes far more paper on the latter rather than the former.
After reading halfway through the book I am exhausted by the too many instances of over-indulgent and sloppy writing (Donovan's "Catch The Wind" a protest song?, "Anytime At All" is a dark and honest song?, "She's A Woman" displays rock's traditional attitude to women?, etc., etc.) and faulty fact-checking.
I've said it before in my other reviews and I will keep saying it: the book publishing industry desparately needs more editors.