counterculture — Bunk History

The Strange and Wonderful Subcultures of 1960s New York

From slum clearance to beatnik protests, how Greenwich Village became a battleground over race, art, and redevelopment.

by J. Hoberman via Jacobin on July 19, 2025

Robert Crumb

He’s Lewd, Problematic, and Profoundly Influential

R. Crumb’s cartoons plumb the grotesque corners of the American unconscious.

by Jeremy Lybarger via The New Republic on May 20, 2025

Jimi Hendrix performing with his guitar.

How Jimi Hendrix Made "Flower Power" Fashionable

The resurgence of “peace and love” aesthetics in menswear today owes itself to the rebellious spirit of the 1960s and 70s, embodied by musician Jimi Hendrix.

by Derek Guy via PBS NewsHour on November 26, 2024

The Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village.

How Greenwich Village’s Iconic, Iconoclastic Music Scene Came to Be

Max Gordon, Prohibition, and the transformative creation of the Village Vanguard.

by David Browne via Literary Hub on September 18, 2024

A Christian cross in an open field, with a sunset in the background.

Jesus Freaks: On the Free Spirited Evangelicals of the 1970s and 80s

Chronicling the emergence of a unique blend of counterculture and Christianity.

by Eliza Griswold via Literary Hub on August 8, 2024

A series of headshots of the members of R.E.M..

Was It Cooler Back Then?

A search for the memory of R.E.M. in Athens, Georgia.

by Benjamin Hedin via Oxford American on December 5, 2023

Performers at the 1963 Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Ron Patterson, a co-founder of the event, appears in orange at the far right.

The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair

The first of these festivals debuted in the early 1960s, serving as a prime example of the United States' burgeoning counterculture.

by Gillian Bagwell via Smithsonian on September 28, 2023

Marijuana leaves superimposed over photo of two men.

The Dank Underground

In the late Sixties, countercultural media was distributed by the Underground Press Syndicate and bankrolled by marijuana.

by J. Hoberman via New York Review of Books on May 26, 2023

The women of the Source Family pose on a Rolls-Royce for an ad for the release of a recording of the cult's band, Ya Ho Wha 13.

The Cult Roots of Health Food in America

How the Source Family, a radical 1970s utopian commune, still impacts what we eat today.

by Diana Hubbell via Atlas Obscura on April 19, 2023

Stewart Brand’s Dubious Futurism

What did the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog stand for?

by Malcolm Harris via The Nation on June 13, 2022

Yoko Ono looking pensive.

Yoko Ono’s Art of Defiance

Before she met John Lennon, she was a significant figure in avant-garde circles and had created masterpieces. Did celebrity deprive her of her due as an artist?

by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on June 8, 2022

A photo from the 1976 edition of the People's Yellow Pages shows the publication's volunteers assembled before the Vocations for Social Change office in Cambridge

Why The People's Yellow Pages, A Relic Of '70s Counterculture, Still Resonates Today

Fifty years later, The Yellow Pages stand as a testament to grassroots ingenuity and the radical idealism of '70s counterculture.

by Amelia Mason via WBUR on June 28, 2021

Janis Joplin, the Mistaken Icon of the Counterculture

The counterculture dictum to “turn on, tune in, drop out” did not quite capture Janis’s philosophy to “get it while you can.”

by Shalon Van Tine via Tropics of Meta on March 15, 2020

Photo of a large crowd at the Altamont Festival, 1969.

What Happened to Rock and Roll After Altamont?

On the Grateful Dead's “New Speedway Boogie,” and the true end of the Sixties.

by Buzz Poole via Literary Hub on December 6, 2019

People dancing at Woodstock

When Science Was Groovy

Counterculture-inspired research flourished in the Age of Aquarius.

by W. Patrick McCray, David I. Kaiser via Science on August 5, 2019

Aquarius Rising

Considering the religious roots of the 1960s anti-militarist counterculture.

by Jackson Lears via New York Review of Books on September 6, 2018

Boston’s Most Radical TV Show Blew the Minds of a Stoned Generation in 1967

When a Tufts instructor launched the trippy TV show on WGBH, it was unlike anything viewers had ever seen.

by Ryan H. Walsh via Boston Globe on March 1, 2018

The Long Summer of Love

Historians get hip to the lasting influences of ’60s counterculture

by Zoe Corbyn via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 3, 2017

Willie Nelson at the 1973 Fourth of July Picnic, in Dripping Springs.

That ’70s Show

Forty years ago, Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, and a whole host of Texas misfits brought the hippies and rednecks together in outlaw country.

by John Spong via Texas Monthly on January 21, 2013

Locker-Room Liberty

Athletes who helped shape our times and the economic freedom that enabled them.

by Matt Welch via Reason on May 1, 2005

Two bikers ride through the desert in Easy Rider, a 1969 film.

See America First

Two movies, 'Easy Rider' and 'Alice's Restaurant,' reveal the ideals of counterculture and act as vehicles for social commentary.

by Ellen Willis via New York Review of Books on January 2, 1970

What Besieged Universities Can Learn From the Christian Resurgence

Educators can fight back against Trump’s attacks by re-embracing “old-fashioned” disciplines and ideas.

by Molly Worthen via The New Republic on August 11, 2025

Actor on stage on the cover of J. Hoberman's book "Everything Is Now."

Delicate and Dirty

Revisit the transformative moment in American culture through the lens of a new book about the 1960s New York avant-garde.

by Ben Arthur via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 7, 2025

Flowers and a fan drawing at a memorial for Ozzy Osbourne.

Ozzy Osbourne Taught Kids To Rebel By Subverting Christianity

In Ozzy Osbourne's hands, Satan gave a middle finger to hypocrisy and fearmongering.

by Matthew Avery Sutton via USA Today on July 24, 2025

The word "god" is visible, chiseled into the wall behind a statue of Thomas Jefferson.

Why the Founders Fought for Separation of Church and State

Establishing freedom of religion was a hard-fought success of the American Founding. Today we are still fighting.

by John A. Ragosta via Made By History on July 10, 2025

View of a cast member sitting nude on scaffolding during a performance.

The Sixties Come Back to Life in “Everything Is Now”

J. Hoberman’s teeming history of New York’s avant-garde scene is a fascinating trove of research and a thrilling clamor of voices.

by Richard Brody via The New Yorker on June 6, 2025

Shulamith Firestone, 1997.

When the Battle's Lost and Won

Shulamith Firestone and the burdens of prophecy.

by Audrey Wollen via Harper’s on March 28, 2025

David Bowie singing into a microphone wearing a feather boa and tights.

How Pop Came Out of the Closet

Jon Savage’s “The Secret Public” traces the influence of queer artists on a hostile culture.

by Samuel Clowes Huneke via The New Republic on February 14, 2025

Meme of white Gen X voters in their ironic cynicism.

We Care a Lot: White Gen Xers and Political Nihilism

Since the 2024 election, liberals, progressives, and the left has been wringing our collective hands over why Trump won yet again.

by Mindy Clegg via 3 Quarks Daily on December 20, 2024

The World of Tomorrow

When the future arrived, it felt…ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?

by Virginia Postrel via Works In Progress on December 5, 2024

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