It was the high water mark for the underground press phase of American Journalism. The Seventies saw the emergence of the "alt" era of the newspaper business.
In the book's Afterword, McMillan points out the similarities and parallels between the Sixties underground newspaper fad and the new trend of writers expressing themselves via blogging, which raises the question: Will future media scholars write books about the early days of the Internet? McMillan's book will leave hippies asking this question: "Other than new labels and slogans for old issues, does anything really change from one generation to the next?"
For someone who can remember getting details of the shooting of James Rector from copies of the Berkeley Barb that were "hot off the press," and who remembers the opportunity for catching a free Stones concert at Altamont as being an invitation to participate in a traffic jam of historic proportions, reading McMillan's book was an enjoyable preliminary means for gathering material for a new column, but as to the readability appeal of this book for someone who hadn't yet been born when Nixon beat Hubert Humphrey for the right to a free squat in the White House, we'll let you know if a friend in Concordia thinks about it if they send us a review after we send them our personal copy of this new book from Oxford University Press.
It is apparent that the lessons learned in America during the Sixties about gaining control of unruly mobs are well known in Cairo today.
(We are relatively certain that any Berkeley citizen who still has copies of the Berkeley Barb among the material in their personal archives will like this book.)
On page 76 McMillan quotes the editor of the Barb, Max Sherr, as saying: "We'd plant small articles in the paper saying "There's a rumor that something is going to happen on Telegraph Avenue Friday at two o'clock.' So people would show up on Friday to see what would happen, someone would say, "Hey, let's close off the street,' and something would happen."
Now the disk jockey will play Donovan's "Mellow Yellow," Harry Belefonte's "Banana boat" song, and Country Joe McDonald's "Fixin' to Die Rag."
We have to go over to San Francisco to check out an event that is being called a Neal Cassidy birthday party. Have a "groovy" week.
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