Tennessee Books

This book is a fascinating, engaging read. It feels more like a great story than a history book, but is a really interesting insight into the beginnings of WSM, the early history of radio, country music, the Opry, the start of many a famous name in broadcasting, and Nashville itself. Thoroughly enjoyable, I would recommend this to every reader I know.

Havighurst has compiled a tremendous amount of information on this subject into a story which comes to life. I can't imagine any one writing a more definitive work on WSM and that era. He has succeeded, for this reader, into making WSM a living, breathing character unto itself within this story. I'm not even a huge country music fan but no matter, Havighurst's storytelling style and obvious passion for telling this story won me over early on. Once I picked it up I couldn't put it down. He made me feel as if I was right there in the early days of radio, watching and listening as all the early pioneers of the industry shaped the airwaves. Great read for anyone interested in how radio began and evolved and it's impact on not only country music but the world as well.

I believe Air Castle of the South is an important book, in that it goes far beyond the history of a musical genre. It sheds light on the mindset of those who first dabbled in a revolutionary new medium. The innocence, curiosity, and zeal of some of radio's brilliantly naive pioneers is painstakingly recorded, as is their evolution from enthusiastic hobbyists to full time broadcasters. But this accessible read is not just a nostalgic indulgence. It's full of insights for the era-changing times we are in now, where the Internet is opening new doors of opportunity for those willing to rethink the why, the what, and the how. As a performing artist who came up through the ranks playing on country music radio shows, including the Opry, Air Castle rekindled my affection for the charm and simplicity of those shows. As someone who grew up listening to a transistor radio in bed late at night with an earphone, it renewed my love of the medium of sound; where the absence of force-fed visual images allows one's imagination to create them in the theater of the mind. Thank you, Craig Havighurst, for this invaluable work. It is clearly a labor of love.

Just finished Craig Havighurst's magnificent history of WSM. It's a read that you hate to see come to an end.

What a GREAT station WSM was in its golden age which extended into the TV era while other stations of its size threw in the towel and got rid of its live musicians and the stuff that made bigtime radio great.

The book comes to a sad ending--the rash sacking of TNN and Opryland--and I kinda felt like I was finishing the final pages of "Gone With the Wind."

Anybody with an interest in Bluegrass, Country, Nashville, big time radio, the Ryman and/or the roots of country music and broadcasting has to read this book.

I was born and raised in the north and first came to the south in the mid-1950's. I know there was prejudice in the north but nothing like I found in the south. As a result, this book had a deep emotional impact on me.

It's 1947 and the Turners (Willie Dean, his wife, Addy and their children, Milo and Rose) are the first black family to move to Morgan Hill. The Gables (Fran and her children, Jane and John) are kind, hard-working people who don't have much. Despite the disapproval of her friend, Margaret, Fran becomes friends with Addy Turner. Tragedy strikes and Fran makes a promise to Addy that she intends to keep no matter what Margaret and other narrow-minded, prejudiced people in town have to say about it. Difficult circumstances cause Fran to question her choice for a time, but she knows that although change isn't always easy, God and His angels are always around.
To have to read the words "nigger boy" numerous times was bothersome, but it wasn't unexpected. I'm just glad there were parts in the story that made me giggle. As a whole, The Angels of Morgan Hill was a good read, and the epilogue was touching.

This is the first book I have read by this author, and I loved it. I literally cried through the last 20 pages of this book. To say that it pulls at your heartstrings is truly an understatement. While reading this book, it made me think back on a time when things were like they were described in this story. A very sad time. This is a very fast read and very hard to put down once you start reading. I am looking forward to reading more books by Donna VanLiere =)

I got this book last year for Christmas. My mother and I sat up and I read it aloud on Christmas night. We would sit up very, very late reading this book. We both enjoyed it and couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next. Toward the end, I had a hard time reading it because i was crying so hard. This is a great story and I'm grateful for the time my mother and I spent reading it together.

Talk about how (as a character suggests in the movie "Hurricane") "sometimes a book chooses you"... Was it quirky intuition or some funky higher power that moved me when, as I was about to leave the library, a sudden urge made me turn around and, overlooking all the other fictions on the shelves, with unknown purpose shuffle aside the books in a bin until my hand lit on this one. Had never heard of the author or the book (although the title was appealing), but something inside of me whispered "Read this!"

Whatever the spell, subconscious or spooky, I'm glad I did. This was a book that started out good and only got better; read it practically overnight. In the end, it was Arthur Flowers' vibrant storytelling, so warm and alive with understanding of human frailty and fullness of spirit--like a downhome, latter-day incarnation of the oldtime poet who said, "I am human, therefore nothing human is alien to me"--that spoke to me, made me smile and ache and glow.

"I am hoodoo, I am griot, I am a man of power," he trumpets at the opening in a verbal fanfare, a narrative device echoing and acknowledging ancient oral tradition; there is power in the word and magic in the story. "My story is a true story, my words are true words, my lie is a true lie--a fine old delta tale about a mad blues piano player and a Arkansas conjure woman on a hoodoo mission.... Plan to show you how they found the good thing. True love. That once-in-a-lifetime love.... because when you find true love my friend its strictly do or die."

Set in the Mississippi River delta country in and around Memphis, Tennessee, at the dawn of the Jazz Age, ANOTHER GOOD LOVING BLUES tracks the sweet & sour course of the relationship between bluesman Luke Bodeen--peacock proud, stylish and sure--and alluring, stiff-necked hoodoo woman Melvira Dupree, who's haunted by her past and future. Yet other rivers run through it: memories of arcane gods and religious rites variously practiced by descendants of African slaves throughout the Americas; the trickle, then stream, of Southern blacks fleeing impoverished indenture in the fields for the promise of Northern urban opportunity post-World War I. Race-conscious workingclass intellectuals gather with college-trained professionals to debate Garvey vs. Dubois, the church vs. traditional African religion. The periodic floods of "The Great Muddy," the mighty Mississippi itself, become legend in song and story.

It's territory that Zora Neale Hurston (who makes a "guest appearance," as does W. C. Handy) plumbed and celebrated, and more recently Ishmael Reed: the nexus of history and folklore, literal and visceral, sanctified and streetwise.

But, aah, the core of the story, that man-woman thing! Heart of the blues. "You don't know what love is until you know the meaning of the blues," goes the famous song. Flowers, a veteran bluesman himself, is especially deft, and searingly compassionate, showing "how to go down like a natural man" after Luke breaks off with Melvira:

"Lucas Bodeen let the music say all the things he wanted to say to her. O baby, I love you so. I don't understand why or nothing, I just love you. Lucas Bodeen played his heart out, another man hurting cause my baby's gone and o the loving sure was good blues.

"O God baby, how could you really leave me?

"Tears.

"...After awhile the music start getting good to him, and ol Bodeen, he forgot all about how bad he felt. Got into the music, made that piano stand up and do tricks. No matter how much trouble you got in mind, the blues tend to remind you that the sun is going to shine in your back door someday. For all the pain it cost him, he had to say he was glad she had come into his life. Don't do for a man to live and die without having known at least one great love in his life. He would have hated to have died without having ever felt like she made him feel."

Flowers, besides his talent, experience and skill, obviously has considerable affection for all his characters; all the people of this book live and breathe. What's more, he tells a plethora of stories and all of them involve you. And his triumphant narrative voice is the finest, most lyrical and comprehensible use of Southern black vernacular I've ever read. I love this book: It's a work of enormous heart, healing and redemption. Told plain and simple, touching and to the point. ("Literature and hoodoo," says one character, "both are tools for shaping the soul." "Spiritwork," says another. "Sacred literature... Rootwork.") Let this nexus of love, blues and hoodoo work its magic on you.

I read this book a couple of years ago... It was not a book I normally would have read, but I picked it up and was quickly drawn into it. The voice of the narrator is very powerful and persuasive, convincing you that the characters are real--the emotions behind each of the words certainly are! The story is very believable. It seems simple, but it is more. You can actually hear someone telling you this story and it almost doesn't feel as if you're reading. In the end, you definitely feel a deep appreciation towards the writer and his gift.

Need something to cozy up to and sweep you away on a mighty good time? Get this book. The writing is lush, beautiful, yet concise. It's a good read. Thank you Mr. Flowers! And keep on writing. I, for one, want more.

Arthur Flowers has created the most beautiful love story to come out in years.I was drawn into the world of Melvira, Luke, and the Delta's conjure women. I gained a deeper appreciation for the blues, (that I could hear gliding across the pages)as I savored the flavor of this magnificent work.

Blind Singer Joe's Blues is a novel set in the birthplace and time of modern American music. The complex and all-too human characters whose live play out against this backdrop are the musicians who create what we now call blues, rag-time and country music.

The author's deep knowledge of the music of that era is obvious throughout. It complements his ability to draw strong portraits of the characters and an engrossing story line.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Highly recommended.

I couldn't put this beautifully-crafted book down once I started it. Robert Love Taylor's masterful handling of perspective and dialogue, his insightful and sympathetic development of characters, and the precise perfection of the language throughout make this a rare gem. You won't find its match in evoking the feel of music. I loved it.

More truth in reviewing: I know the author too, and I knew he could make a fiddle sing like God's choir of spring-morning birds -- but I had no idea he could do the same thing with mere words of clay. Blind Singer Joe's Blues sings through hard-bitten characters and hard times; through soul-searching, generosity, orneriness and forgiveness; and through the greenbrier thicket of family ties.

Taylor eases the reader through viewpoint, time and place, just as a tune effortlessly weaves from chorus to verse and back again. The plot unfolds so sparely that you wonder at how he creates such a complex tapestry in such a small space.

His characters -- Hannah Ruth, Pink Miracle, Dudley Crider and his mama Pearlie, Mama Bayless, Emmett and Amelia Holt -- reveal themselves, their stations, their hopes and beliefs through their language, all of it sounding as true as a tuning fork, as when Dudley gives a piece of his mind to the toddler, Singer Joe: "We are Criders and don't have no fear, he told the boy, and he imagined some of O.T., some of Uncle Crockett and Uncle U.S., some of Daddy, some of himself, yes, and then all the Criders before them, grandaddies and grandmamas by the score, crowded up in Singer Joe's veins."

Religious passion and personal passion meet sorrow and self-denial and all of it makes up the blues that are the fabric of Singer Joe's life.

Start this book on Friday night; you'll want the weekend to finish it.

Truth in reviewing: I am acquainted with the author, but haven't seen him in ages. Years ago he promised another novel with the old-time fiddler character Pink Miracle from his earlier book, THE LOST SISTER, and he has finally delivered. It is well worth the wait: it is highly readable and atmospheric, filled with memorable people. It's about souls who may seem kind of marginal in global and universal schemes but who find a way to be heard, to matter in the middle of it all.

Taylor has drawn on family history and legend out of his ancestral territory of Oklahoma and the mountains of eastern Tennessee for his past books. In this new work, in which he is at the top of his powers as a storyteller and fiction stylist, he looks at the early 20th century country folks who poured their lives into the songs that became the modern bluegrass, jazz and folk traditions. The jazz musician of the title and his blues are the legacy of the stories that flow together in this narrative, swirling around a restless songbird teenage mother who deserts him as well as everyone else in her life.

I confess to having been haphazardly acquainted with bluegrass music through occasional street festivals and local arts events. Coincidentally, as I was reading BLIND SINGER JOE'S BLUES, an Alison Krauss concert video was brought into the house. Listening and reading at the same time, I realized just how much Taylor's novel is alive with the music and explains how it got that way; and Krauss, well, she and bluegrass have a new fan.

A sultry summer...A young woman's struggle. She was young, she was naive. Her upper class upbringing didn't prepare her for the reality she would face. In her journey, she struggled, she learned and she grew strong. As I read this book, I couldn't wait to see what came next. When I finished it, I didn't want to let the characters go. I can't wait to see what comes next from this fresh, new author - there has to be a sequel!

The lucid story line, written in both a technically strong style and one in which the common reader who cut their teeth on fundamental prose can wrap there hands around. The author avoids pitfalls common to first time authors of either writing from obviously autobiographical perspective or writing one more of those "man's inhumanity to man" stories that's been done a thousand time too many.

Gage is the best thing happening in this book. Gage reminds me of this guy I work with, it could be him, I think it might be modeled after him, loosely of course as I'm sure he and the author have never met. Gage is down to earth, rooted in the tradition of Olmstead, and many of the legends of the green industry.

Bon Mots to Ericssen!

The characters are fully developed and intriguing. Once I began reading, I was drawn in completely to the world of Memphis in 1878. An interesting literary device and plot twists make this book a great read. I'll be first in line to buy the next Ericcsen novel!

Read this book and could not put it down! I look forward to the next one. Great background in history and I thought of some of the characters as real Memphis folk!

I am a huge fish enthusiat and this book is the most informative and useful guide to fresh water fishes I have ever seen. I've seen other books from other states and have countless field guides, but Fishes of Tennesse wins hands down. The pictures and illustrations really help you figure out what you may have collected. This book is a must for native fishes enthusiats.

Whether you are an professional ichthyologist, a collector of native fishes or just someone who is curious about the aquatic fauna found in Tennessee, this is the book for you. Tennessee has more species of fishes found within its borders than any other state. This book is extremely well written and should prove an excellent value. It is simply the best available.

One of the most detailed and comprehensive regional ichthyofaunal guides available. A must for the freshwater fisheries biologist.

Anyone interested in the waters and fish fauna of Tennessee will HAVE to procure this book. With complete species and taxonomic descriptions of all native and exotic fish, this book also provides intimate details concerning ecology, behavior, and evolution of the class Osteichthyes. Beautiful color photos of living specimens make identification a pleasant experience using the detailed keying information. Though not inexpensive, its price is less than most other books in its class. For a technical taxonomic work it is very easy to read. I highly recommend it for any naturalist interested in aquatic fauna of the region

It wasn't exactly what I expected, it was better. Alongside the recipes are stories of the characters on the show. I loved it. And I received it very quickly and in great shape.

I needed a book about the Beverly Hillbillies and this cookbook exceeded my wishes! Not only did it have great receipes with a "Hillbilly" flair but the pictures throughout the book were wonderful! My girlfriend who won it can't wait to show all her friends and the receipes are fantastic and easy!

Not many things are better than spending time with an old friend, especially one who makes you laugh. This cookbook provides lots of chuckles, good recipes, and great pictures. It is almost like looking at an old photo album, recognizing the unique expressions and almost hearing the familiar voices spout the delightful quotes which are sprinkled throughout the book. It is not only a cookbook but is a book to just look through and enjoy as well. Anyone who watched the Beverly Hillbillies would enjoy reminiscing through the pages. The recipes are a nice mix of true Granny style cooking, such as Granny's Groundhog, as well as some very delicious recipes, more appetizing to city folk. The recipes are not difficult and there are some to satisfy even the hungriest Jethro in any family. The descriptions of the cast and the history of the show are fun to read. It is a wonderful mix of quotes, trivia, recipes and pictures. If you have to spend time in the kitchen, you might as well do it with Granny!

Win I seen this here book in the liebarry I just bout falled oer backards. I luv possum pi an collerd greenz like granee usta fix fore she was runned oer by mister drizdales kar. now I kan kook my favrites bi miself.

This book is full of very specific information about Smoky Mountain trout fishing. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to fish the area.

Ian did a great job of presenting the information on the park and identifying great placed to fish for trout. A highly recommended reading.

A tribute to concise writing, Ian's book imparts exactly the amount of information needed to plan and fish the Smokies. I'm a dedicated fly fisher from Northern California who travels to Tennessee each Spring, and while there are other guide books describing the park, Ian's is the best at capturing the flavor of each stream and river.

What shines through all the information is Rutter's obvious love for these streams, rivers, and typically smallish trout. Indeed, he's widely regarded as a leading expert on the Brook Trout of the park, and even helps the scientific teams gather data about the range and recovery of the native Brook trout.

Adding a love of fly fishing to that level of knowledge - and wrapping it up in a direct, friendly writing style - and you've got a winner. Thumbs up.

Up front I have to say that I have had the author guide me on three separate occasions. On one of those trips, he taught my wife how to fly fish in the Smokies and she caught some nice trout on dry flies. So he doesn't just write about fishing - he really fishes. If you are looking for a guide book that will tell you precisely where to fish and gives away all the prime spots; this isn't it. The author tells you where the streams are and how to get to them. He tells the equipment you need and some techniques. If you already know a little bit about trout fishing this is a perfect guide book. It has enough information but it isn't a kiss-and-tell book. Having read the other available books on the GSMNP, I can say this is the best of it's kind. If you want to really get the inside scoop hire Ian as a guide for a few days. He is a great guy and this is a great book!

This book was used in my Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. The book gives a brief introduction to the region and cultural areas of the Appalachians. This book barely scratches the surface of Appalachian Studies. It is well written, informative, and worth reading. But I recommend a series of books if you wish to study and learn more of the Appalachians.

Book was in very good shape.
SEller handled the mailing in a prompt manner.

Edited by the team of Grace Toney Edwards (directs the Appalachian Regional Studies Center at Radford University), Joann Aust Asbury (teaches in the English department and assists with the Highland Summer Conference for the Appalachian Regional Studies Center at Radford University), and Ricky L. Cox (teaches Appalachian folklore in the English department at Radford University), A Handbook To Appalachia: An Introduction to the Region is an anthology of essays by learned academics offering overviews of the history and majesty of the Appalachian region. Directed toward a general audience, the essays discuss "Peoples of Appalachia: Cultural Diversity within the Mountain Region", "The Economy of Appalachia", "Health Care in Appalachia", "Education in Appalachia", "The Politics of Change in Appalachia", and much more. Extensively researched, illustrated with a handful of black-and-white photographs, and enhanced with numerous suggestions for further reading A Handbook To Appalachia is enthusiastically recommended for any scholar or lay person seeking a relatively brief yet comprehensive survey of the region, whether for collegiate interdisciplinary studies or simple curiosity.

If you are new to the region, just want to learn, are a teacher, a realtor, moving there, or relocating a business, this work has information and references to more background on nearly any topic related to the Appalachian region. Cross-referenced meticulously, this book is a must for anyone engaged with the public, pursuing scholarly work, or simply interested in learning more about the region.

Written/edited in an engaging and informative manner, you will find this book an invaluable resource.

It is a steal at any price.

This is a good read but like all books about the hippies and the sixties it completely misses the true genesis of the counterculture: technology. Marshall McCluhan wrote about the technological extensions of humans. The sixty's revealed the first generation which had grown up on television and other new electronic extensions were in fact rebelling against their electronic master. The slavery was in the mind. Everyone over thirty trusted the new direction the culture was headed in and by the seventy's the revolution/rebellion was over. Now hear in 2008 we have put on our ear plugs, eye shades, and as Pete sang, "You know where to put the cork." We took it.

Timothy Miller's book is an excellent assessment of the effects of the hippy generation on present day society, both good and bad. It's a must read for anyone who wants to understand what was going on in the 60s. For a thrilling fictional work, have a look at "Life Boiling Over" by Jon Michael Miller. This brilliant novel deals with a couple who go through the hippie scene together, starting at Ohio State University and ending up in Woodstock and San Francisco. It follows the turbulent events that culminated in the campus turmoil that led to four student deaths at Kent State. Through passion, folly, joy and love, the couple struggles to understand themselves and their relationship. Their struggle comes to conclusions that will startle you. It's by far the best book I've ever read about the hippie generation.

Although it has become fashionable to denigrate the whole hippie era as ineffective and counterproductive, Timothy Miller does much in this book to set the record straight about the considerable legacy of the Counter Culture -- for better or for worse.

From the ethics of sex, dope and rock and roll, to the questioning of property rights and greater latitude in daily speech, from New Age spirituality to more ethical investments in the market place - to the very food we eat - hippie culture has had a tremendous and continuing impact on American society.

*The Hippies and American Values* appears to pick up where Theodore Roszak's book, *The Making of a Counter Culture* left off. More than 20 years ago, Roszak showed how an alienated generation undermined the foundations of the prevailing technocracy. Miller acknowledges this but goes on to point out how the Counter Culture gave free press and credence to right-brain values that they saw as much neglected -- this before "right-brain, left-brain" became buzz words.

"Peace, love and flower power are no longer standard argot," observes Miller, "...Hip culture has bloomed and died like a centuryplant..." But the "new ethics" of the hippies are here to stay nevertheless. They are a potpourri of traditional values, untried social experiments, and a few truly original ideas for an American setting. Hippies attacked new icons such as technocracy while honoring agrarian values coupled with a new hip Eco-consciousness. The Counter Culture dropped out, disaffiliated from the prevailing society and changed themselves in order to change the world.

What I like most about this book is that it is a resource. It belongs right up there on my bookshelf with Roszak's classic study and with *Sleeping Where I Fall* by Peter Coyote, for starters. It's no dry old bone, however. There are marvelous pictures of Be-Ins and Drop City, and rock groups and posters. There is a bibliography of both well-known and obscure underground newspapers (from which the author quotes extensively). Where and when was the first Earth Day, the first Human Be-In, that Death-of-Hip coffin? They're all here. And more. Miller points us to where and how the legacy continues even to this day. If you never read another book about hippies, read this one. pamhan99@aol.com

This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.

The 1960's was a time of radical change in American history. Timothy Miller's The Hippies and American Values looks into the controversial subject of the effect the hippies had on American society and its values. Since post World War II American society had seen so many changes in just a few decades. "Hippiedom" was another new change the nation had to deal with in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

The "Hippiedom" movement in the 1960's became known as the counterculture. This movement was composed of teenagers and persons in their early twenties who chose to separate themselves from the traditional American lifestyle. Hippies were usually young, white and came from the upper middle class. The hippie culture's basic beliefs were in peace, racial harmony, and equality. Their culture condoned smoking marijuana, engaging in liberated sex, and living communally they felt that as long as no one was hurting anyone else or themselves it was okay.

The main characteristic of the hippies was dope, and the majority of the hippies used it. Dope was one of the main elements that separated the counterculture from the mainstream. Hippies looked upon dope as good, and approved the use of any drug that was perceived as being able to expand consciousness. Drugs that made people "dumb" were bad (25). The main elements of hip ethics of dope looked something like this:

Use it positively. Use it sanely. Know what you're doing. Avoid bad drugs. Avoid misuse of (good) dope. Don't use dope to hurt others. Assert your freedom to make your own decisions
about dope. And have a good trip (27).

Hippies believed that dope was about fun, revolution and was good for their body and soul. They lived by the creed: "If it feels good, then do it so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else." (29) Dope was believed to be useful in many different ways. One specific use of dope was to heighten intimacy and interpersonal interaction.

In the counterculture movement dope and sex were often intertwined. Hippies believed that people should be free to express their sexuality as they chose and use dope to boost the sexual experience. Hippies had extensive reasoning as to why they should enjoy sex. They used the same credo for sex as they did for dope.

Homosexuality and nudity developed a consciousness within the Hippiedom as well and became part of the new sexuality. It was not long before the consequences of this life-style forced the counterculture to deal with issues such as social diseases, birth control and abortion. These new obstacles did not deter them from participating in orgies and organized free sex which they believed was harmless, helped break down social barriers, created community spirit and was beneficial to one's private sex life (65).

While dope and sex were major elements of the counterculture movement in the late 1960's and early 1970's the movement was not complete without rock and roll. Rock and roll was believed to have been a major influence on the feelings and beliefs of the counterculture. It became a way of life and a means of communication. The lyrics reflected the counterculture's values and in turn helped shape them (78). Rock and roll festivals and concerts were considered sacramental gatherings by the counterculture. They provided opportunities for massive indulgence in dope, nudity, sex, rock and community. Woodstock was one such example of a sacramental gathering to hippies.

Rock and roll and dope played a major role in developing communal living arrangements within the hippie countercultural movement. Those who lived in the communes believed they were rejecting mainstream society. The communes were usually located in the country so that the communards could "get back to the basics", by living off the land."

Hippies created their own "love" generation (104). Although the counter-culture movement attempted to stay free of the mainstream, they were not immune to opposition from the traditional society. Conventional society was opposed to dope, sex, rock and roll and hippies' sense of community. Hippies believed love was the only answer to major problems afflicting the world (105). As a result of their beliefs on love, they had some political implications.

Hippies believed in disinvolvement and felt that voting was useless and politics were not a concern of "free" people. This resulted in hippies "dropping out" as they fell out of the mainstream society and into a New Age (110). Despite "dropping out" they had to keep one
foot in the mainstream door because they had to work. While hippies worked by necessity they believed money was meaningless and just a necessary evil. They considered play to be much more important in their value system. In order to stay true to their beliefs they would only play games, such as Frisbee, that did not require score keeping, competition and rules. If people did not incorporate play into their day, hippies believed they were missing out.

By all accounts hippies did their own thing and believed they were starting something new with the "sexual" revolution, the drugs and the rock and roll. However, while they were "loving" everyone and "getting back to the basics" they were just repeating history; but their movement is probably the most substantial remnant of hip culture we have (136). They did not look at the past to see how wrong they were. For example, they were iconoclasts. However, iconoclasm is another classic American virtue. They were different in that new issues were under attack. They chose to confront rationality, technocracy, and materialism (126).

The hippies' idea of living in the country in their communes was also not a new idea. The establishment of thousands of communes in rural areas was a replay of the agrarian ideal not
to mention a communal vision - which was well established in the nineteenth century. Sexual freedom was another case in point. For years there have been groups who deviate from the norm when it comes to patterns of heterosexuality, monogamy, marriage and wearing clothes (127).

In the counterculture movement women were referred to as "chicks" or if they were in a relationship they were "old ladies" (16). Women withdrew from the "sexual" revolution
because it involved male predominance. "Free" sexuality, like any other kind, "carries with it an
unwarranted domination by the man, of the woman, which injures both," a hip southern female wrote.

Another woman was more blunt: ''The talk of love is profuse but the quality of
relationships is otherwise ...The idea of sexual liberation for the woman means she is not so much free to f*** as to get f***ed over ...Our mothers could get a home and security, a prostitute money, but a hippie woman is bereft of all that "(67).

The question will forever remain as to whether the hippies had a lasting effect on American society and its values. They certainly attracted public awareness during their time with the popularization of recreational drugs and the new attitudes toward sex. They believed with all their heart, at the time that they were making a huge impact on the world. Although after their "heyday" it is questionable if what they thought they were working towards was ever accomplished.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history, counter-culture history.