Abbie Hoffman

Abbie Hoffman is a symbol of the activist sixties. He was there at the beginning, at the protests against the House Committee on Un-American Activities in San Francisco and as an organizer for the southern civil rights movement. His life fused the radicalism of rebellious hippie youth, the anti-Vietnam War protest movement, and the political agenda of the American left. Although the revolution that he anticipated proved an illusion in the end, his ideas and ideals changed the course of American history. Abbie Hoffman was more than a "sixties radical." He was one of the most inventive community organizers in American history; his insights into effective political activism hold lessons for activists today. Hoffman was also the quintessential showman, the star and creator of an explosively funny, subversive, and revelatory theater of the street, and the first political theorist to use television advertising techniques to create news. Whether publicizing injustice, promoting hedonism, protesting war, or fighting to save the environment, no one could raise a stink and grab a headline as spectacularly as Abbie Hoffman. This first biography of Abbie Hoffman from the late 1960s, places Hoffman in the social, cultural, and political milieu in which he lived and worked. Marty Jezer focuses on the ideas that informed his politics and describes what happened to the Left and to America when Hoffman put his ideas into action. Jezer admires Hoffman's courage, creativity, and idealism, but is critical of his refusal to set limits on his personal and political life. Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel reveals a warm, generous, and exciting personality whose private and public lives were often one, whose impact is still apparent, whose life touched and in this book will continue to touch people devoted to justice and progressive change.

New York Times Book Review - Todd Gitlin

Jezer is a tender but often tough-minded guide to Abble Hoffman's adventures....a solid account of the Iife of an Inventive. destructive luftmensch, and a valuable cautionary tale for both the left and right.