The Beat Generation: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Beginners' Guides)

The Beat Generation: a Beginner's Guide chronicles the origins, adventures, and inner workings of the first counterculture movement and examines its monumental legacy which ranges from abstract expressionism to the Simpsons. The Beat Generation were a revolutionary group of poets, drifters, musicians, and visionaries whose gritty spontaneous prose explored alienation, repression, and what it meant to be a member of the human race in post-WWII American society. Through the iconic personalities of Ginsberg, Kerouac, Corso, and Burroughs, along with women writers, musicians, and artists, Christopher Gair charts the emergence and true significance of the group, revealing how their fresh approach to literature and a bohemian lifestyle created one of the most exciting and important movements in American literature. Half a century after the publication of the modern classics Howl and On the Road, the movement continues to attract scores of new readers, influencing everything from bebop to the Beastie Boys.