For the Hell of It
Subtitle: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: January 6, 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 315
ISBN-13: 9780520205758
Subjects: Biography: general; Cultural studies; Political activism; c 1960 to c 1970; Historical - U.S.; Rebellion And Insurgency; U.S. History - 1960s; Biography & Autobiography; Biography / Autobiography; Radicalism; Biography/Autobiography; USA; History; History & Theory - Radical Thought; Political; History / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies); Hoffman, Abbie; United States; Historical - General; 20th century; Biography; Radicals
First sentence: Abbie Hoffman belongs to a distinct generation of American radicals born in the mid- to late thirties who became synonymous with rebellion and insurrection, feminism and black power, and the antiwar and youth movements of the sixties.
Description: Drawing on his own twenty-year relationship with Hoffman, hundreds of interviews with friends, family members, and former comrades, and careful scrutiny of FBI files, court records, and public documents, Raskin provides the best account we have of this mercurial figure. He takes us from Hoffman's childhood in Worcester, Massachusetts, through his civil rights and antiwar activities - in particular his roles in the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the notorious Chicago Conspiracy trial the next year.

Raskin chronicles Hoffman's cocaine bust, his years underground during the seventies, and his alternating fits of manic hyperactivity and paralyzing depression. When he took his own life in 1989, Hoffman was both larger than life and a deeply troubled soul.