The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the American Culture [Hardcover]

Holly George-Warren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 28, 1999

Featuring "Rolling Stone" pieces by William Burroughs and Lester Bangs, reminiscences by Ken Kesey, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, and Bono, and photographs by Annie Leibovitz and Gerard Malanga, this treasury of Beat lore and literature is a true collector's item. 40 photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Celebrating the spontaneous, freewheeling, drug-taking, taboo-breaking 1950s and '60s artists called Beats or beatniks, this is a huge dim sum cart of a book, loaded with essays, reprinted book reviews, commissioned memoirs, interviews and pictures. Editor George-Warren (co-editor of The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll) divides the book into six sections that give a historical overview; pay tribute to Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg; examine less well-known figures; and assess the Beats' influences on American culture today. Given the possible pitfalls of a long anthology, and the "spontaneous" Beat ethos, the writing here is surprisingly polished. Cultural critics include Lester Bangs, who provides a rapid-fire elegy on Kerouac ("the decades fall past like dominoes into bookless eras of daily apocalypse"); Greil Marcus, who turns up twice (on Ginsberg and Kerouac); and Richard Meltzer, who lets loose with his hipster jive in an overview of Beat books. There are memoirs by major players in the movement, including Burroughs, Carol Cassady and Lawrence Ferlinghetti; and homages from self-proclaimed heirs of the Beats, including Patti Smith, Richard Hell, Lee Ranaldo (of Sonic Youth) and Johnny Depp. Amusing debates emerge, about the meaning of Maynard G. Krebs for the movement, and whether hippies or punks were truer to the beatnik spirit. On the serious side, Allen Ginsberg comes in for criticism as a self-promoter, held responsible for the deleterious effect of fame on Kerouac and Neal Cassady. Without excerpts from the fiction or poetry, this anthology isn't an introduction. But it is a first-rate companion.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

"A celebration of Beat culture in words and pictures," this collection looks at the Beat Generation's influence on popular art and culture, especially rock'n'roll. The book is organized into six parts: an opening section documents the birth of the Beat Generation; separate sections are devoted to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs; one section covers minor beat writers; and a concluding section examines the Beat Generation's legacy. Articles include reprinted interviews and reviews from Rolling Stone along with newly commissioned pieces by Carolyn Cassady, Hettie Jones, and David Amram, among others. Authors range from literary scholars like Ann Charters and John Tytell to rock and folk artists like Patti Smith, Lee Renaldo, Johnny Depp, and Eric Andersen. This well-balanced anthology should be a welcome addition to most public and academic libraries.AWilliam Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1st edition (July 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786864265
• ISBN-13: 978-0786864263
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,371,073 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Holly George-Warren is an award-winning writer, editor, producer, and music consultant. She has contributed to more than two dozen books about rock and roll, including The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock, and The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. She's also written for the New York Times, the Village Voice, the Journal of Country Music, and Rolling Stone. Ms. George-Warren lives in upstate New York with her family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Look At The "Beats" Incredible Cultural Influence, May 14, 2002

By 

Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the American Culture (Hardcover)

For me, this book represented both a challenge and a labor of love, for it was a real culture shock for someone who has enough life experience (and is therefore old enough) to look back some forty years to recall and appreciate, in all its too-predictable homogeneity, the suffocating conformity of America in the 1950s, and how the growth and flowering of the so-called "beat" consciousness rose to challenge the politics, economics, and social life of the contemporary society. This is indeed a definitive collection of writings, photographs, and etchings that faithfully recalls the nature of beat society. The first impressions we had were silly stereotypes offered in TV series like Dragnet, where the beats were pictured as psychopathic con men trying to fleece the general public with their esoteric jargon. But then again, how would one expect someone as conventional and strait-laced as Jack Webb to "grok" onto the nature of the beats or what they were trying to say?

Everyone who was someone in the beat movement is represented here, from poet and Citylights bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti to Allen Ginsberg, from William Burroughs to Graham Parker, from Annie Leibovitz to Hunter Thompson. And what they have to say is most revealing, both about themselves as individuals as well as for the beat movement as a whole. For this was a movement that cried out for a new and more human-oriented perspective in the midst of the dawn of the technocratic society. In many ways the writings are more meaningful and better understood in that sense, as being representative of a profoundly reactive voice howling out against the pities of modern life. And in many things, the beat movement and the accompanying humanistic-oriented ethos it developed was the nurturing force that allowed the flowering of the sixties counterculture. However, as even a cursory reading of these materials will attest, the beat movement was much more than that.

The book traces the movement through four essential stages; first, the birth and growth of the movement with the rise of poets like Allen Ginsberg and the fabled Poetry Renaissance in San Francisco as well as the emergence of beat forms of Jazz music. Then, the three major icons of the beat culture are introduced and surveyed: Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg, whose combined legacy to the beat culture and to modern popular culture are each in turn examined. This is a wonderful book, one full of singular prose and absolutely historic literary pieces. This is one you will want to own, to browse and prowl through, and to read in spurts and starts. There are a myriad of great bits contained here, all of which are cobbled together beautifully by the editors of Rolling Stone. I heartily recommend this book, one that offers the reader a delightfully real and vibrant glimpse into a brief shining moment in popular American culture, once upon a time when ordinary men and women thought and wrote and played with extraordinary thoughts and observations about the nature of life in contemporary America. Enjoy!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Digging into the Beat, January 5, 2001

By 

TheMaddHatter (Lakewood, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the American Culture (Hardcover)

I found this book to be very helpful in my study of beat literature. While many people consider the beat movement to revolve around three or four very talented individuals this book shows the huge array of writers, painters, photographers, conmen, and comidians that helped to influence and form the generation. This book is not only a great read in itself, but is also a great reference tool. Long live the Beats!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars different and good, July 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats: The Beat Generation and the American Culture (Hardcover)

tho i do agree that there is such a frightenly abundant amount of beat gen books that it is hard to get excited about each new one that comes out, i found this one to be quite interesting (and i am person, who, no matter how many books come out, i will at least read, if not own, them all). it is an interesting blend of essays written for rolling stone throughout the years mixed with newly written essays. there are a number of different viewpoints and ways of looking at different aspects of the beats (and really, the whole topic is so layered, i think having numerous boks on the subject is important). i found myself thoroughly entertained, and i have been studying the beats intensely for several years now, so finding new and interesting ways for me to read about them can be a bid of a challenge.