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Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture

Online ISBN:
9780226373072
Print ISBN:
9780226372884
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
Book

Groovy Science: Knowledge, Innovation, and American Counterculture

David Kaiser (ed.),
David Kaiser
(ed.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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W. Patrick McCray (ed.)
W. Patrick McCray
(ed.)
University of California
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Published online:
19 January 2017
Published in print:
31 May 2016
Online ISBN:
9780226373072
Print ISBN:
9780226372884
Publisher:
University of Chicago Press

Abstract

Outspoken commentators in the 1960s and 1970s fretted that American youth culture — especially “hippies” and the counterculture — turned its back on science and technology while chasing New Age enthusiasms. As this volume shows, that critique was misplaced. Many people who self-identified with the American counterculture rejected hulking, militarized projects — Cold War missiles and mainframes — rather than science and technology per se. Instead, they sought a new kind of “groovy science”: small-scale and big-picture, sometimes with hidden links to Cold War projects but championed by charismatic figures bent on self-expression and self-exploration. Many once-radical ideas of groovy science have since been absorbed into the mainstream — their psychedelic, technicolor roots largely forgotten.

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