Books About the Underground and Alternative Press

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Ray Mungo, Famous Long Ago

Voices from the Underground New editions in a revised format are now available! Find Out More -- Order Here

Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America by John McMillan

Excellent Introduction for Anyone Born After 1956...and a great trip down memory lane for those like me who were born before 1956. Smoking Typewriters is so full of fascinating mind-boggling anecd

otes that reading it was like a flashback. I was a writer and photographer in the underground press and served on the board of the Underground Press Syndicate run by Tom Forcade who is profiled in the book.

McMillan's book is balanced and thoughtful. Neither a fawning homage nor a nasty attack, Smoking Typewriters It is what good scholarship is supposed to be. It's also a great read. Some contemporary critics of the underground press are just jealous they weren't smoking dope, getting laid, and attending rock concerts like those of us in the underground press.

Yes there were drugs, sex, and rock & roll in the underground press, but there was occasionally some darn good journalism leaping from the pages, and we helped build a movement for progressive social change that shifted society toward more democracy, equality, and just plain fun. McMillian analyzes this sociological synergy in Smoking Typewriters in prose never is dull even when slyly inserting the intellectual stuff.

While writing the book McMillan came to use the archive where I work at Political Research Associates, and I was hoping the book would be worth the wait. It is.

--Chip Berlet

See in Books:

Bibliography from Bowling Green University

Intellectual freedom and social responsibility in American librarianship

Site curated by Chip Berlet: Barricade Journalism: Notes from a Once Underground Press

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