Countering the counterculture
Subtitle: rereading postwar American dissent from Jack Kerouac to Tomás Rivera
By: Manuel Luis Martinez.
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Madison
Language: eng
Number of pages: 353
Subjects: American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism.; Beat generation.; American literature -- Mexican American authors -- History and criticism.; Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Counterculture -- United States -- History -- 20th century.; Mexican Americans -- Intellectual life.; Mexican Americans in literature.; Social problems in literature.; Libertarianism in literature.; Dissenters in literature.
Description: "In an innovative rereading of American radical politics and culture of the 1950s and 1960s, Martinez uncovers reactionary, neoromantic, and sometimes racist strains in the Beats' vision of freedom, and he brings to the fore the complex stances of Latinos on participant democracy and progressive culture. He analyzes the ways the Beats, Chicanos, and migrant writers conceived of and articulated social and political perspectives. He contends that both the Beats' extreme individualism and the Chicano nationalists' narrow vision of citizenship are betrayals of the democratic ideal, but that the migrant writers presented a distinctly radical and inclusive vision of democracy that was truly countercultural."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 335-348) and index.