Customer Reviews

Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics

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When I first bought this book, I expected it to be a history of straight edge written by one author. Instead, I received a collection of interviews and essays from characters within the straight edge scene. I'm not complaining, only describing what you can expect if you purchase this book.

The book is divided into five sections: bands, scenes, manifestos, reflections, and perspectives. The author makes an explicit effort to focus on the international straight edge scenes in places such as Sweden, Israel, and Brazil. The interview with Ian MacKaye was interesting partly because he is such as well spoken and articulate guy. Then, near the end, Kuhn includes a series of essays and interviews covering the feminist and queer straight edge scenes, which I thought was a little bit off the beaten path but interesting nonetheless.

Joe
[...]

Sober living for the Revolution is an awesome book, more than just the usual war stories and pictures book. The only drawback is when some of the authors/essayists get too out there with the wordplay, meaning yes it's good to have a diverse vocabulary but some of us aren't as familiar with the classics as others, ya know? I'm a pretty well read guy but some of the writings were tough to get through. Over all though a must-read for anyone who thinks Straight Edge should be more than just merch sales and finger pointing.