"It is the aspiration of much literature that it wants to change the way we look at the world, but few authors and poets have been as influential as the group of writers labeled the Beat Generation. They saw a lot that they did not like about American society in the fifties when they came of age, and they did their best to change it through their literature and a new practice of living. They grew up in the climate of the Cold War and felt the pending threat of the nuclear bomb, but instead of being paralyzed by fear, they directed their energy towards changing society and created their own subculture in places as diverse as Greenwich Village in New York, San Francisco and Paris. They rebelled against capitalism, war and middle-class values and they championed freedom, sexuality, spirituality and the mind-expanding use of drugs. In many ways, their Bohemian life style anticipated the great youth rebellion in the sixties, but the soundtrack of their revolt was not rock 'n' roll, but jazz, an art form that also influenced their way of writing. ..."
All About Jazz
2009 August: Beat Generation, 2010 April: Beat Hotel, 2010 October: "Howl" - Allen Ginsberg, 2012 April: The Beats — A Graphic History, 2012 December: Jazz poetry, 2013 January: Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg.
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