EP 1007 How the Counterculture Hipsters Affect the Culture Over Time

 Underground movements and subcultures are not a recent phenomenon.  Throughout modern history these bohemian movements, often marginalized in their time, have brought us our greatest creative minds by virtue of their unwillingness to accept the norms of the day.  Great art, poetry music and thought have derived from these freethinkers.  In recent American history, we can go from the beatnik era of the 1950’s to the hippies of the 1960’s and to the punks of the 1980’s to find the Kerouac’s, Dylan’s, Ginsberg’s, Garcia’s and others who have left an indelible imprint on society.  In his book, Alan Bisbort, a scholar of bohemian history, takes us from Paris in the 1830’s tracing the evolution and stages of the movement in his new book, “Hip, Bohemian, and Counterculture: History and Legacies from 1830 to the Present.” The book is worth reading for its history, context and vivid illustrations of the major forces in the movement over time and certainly for his comparison of Socrates, who in his day must have seemed ‘hip’, to Wavy Gravy.  It’s great stuff.

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