The Last Great DreamThe Last Great Dream

Few cities represent the countercultural movement of the 1960s more than San Francisco. By that decade, the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood was home to several hundred colorful refugees from the conventional, self-branded "freaks" (dubbed "hippies" by the media) who created the world's first psychedelic neighborhood, an alchemical chamber for social transformation. Collectively, these freaks rejected a large part of the mythology underlying the traditional American identity, passing over American exceptionalism, consumerism, misogyny, and militarism in favor of creativity, mind-body connection, peace, and love of all things--humans, animals, and nature alike. ... The Last Great Dream is a history of everything that led to the 1960s counterculture, when long-simmering resistance to American mainstream values birthed the hippie. It begins with the San Francisco Renaissance, peaks with the Human Be-in at Golden Gate Park, and ends with the Monterey Pop Festival that introduced Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world."--Jacket.