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Still Notorious, Radical, and Revolutionary 50 Years Later. A survival guide from one of the greatest creative organizers of the 20th century--now with a new foreword by co-conspirator, Lisa Fithian. Throughout the 1960's and 70's, Abbie Hoffman criss-crossed the country, ferreting out alternative ways of getting by in America--some illegal and all radical. Causing scandals with its advice on how to Survive!, Fight!, and Liberate! in the "prison that is Amerika," Steal This Book is a revolutionary's manual to running a guerilla movement, as well as getting free food, housing, transportation, medical care, and more. This anniversary edition gives a new generation an insider's view into the movements of the sixties and seventies. While many of the holes in the system that Abbie exposed have since been plugged, the spirit of revolution, the dedication to opposing injustice, and the passion of creative activism continue to inspire today.… (more)
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If you are NOT as old as dirt, you still owe it to yourself to take a swim through these pages.
Failing to grasp the dynamic of this era and its implications that are
Hoffman recommends a list of sometimes ingenious ways to get stuff for free, ranging from meat from the meat packers area of New York (make the meat hit the ground and then they have to throw it away) to free buffalos. He also reminisces about the time he rained money down on the NY Stock Exchange and how the stick brokers went apeshit. Obviously all good fun for the people that followed Hoffman’s lead but stepping back you know that Hoffman was criticised for publicising the free stuff, leading lots of people to try the same, thus annoying the people who were doing it regularly as a way to live, and of course the poor meat packers who were swamped with idiots trying to get them to drop the meat. Still, a great time capsule of western civilisation in the late 1960s.
It was published so very long ago, and this isn't just a reprint. With the exception of the updates for Fithian and Giordano, it's basically photocopied from the original. It's uneven; there's at least one image of a cartoon where most of the words are impossible to read. Then again, I don't know that it matters all that much. It's certainly a trip down memory lane. I lived in those times, and I'm not sure that it reads the same for those to whom Nixon is an historical figure, and the 1968 Democratic convention is a footnote, at best. I remember that night better than I remember breakfast this morning, and the world changed then.
Abbie Hoffman was born out of those times. So was this book. It's a mirror for those days, but the mirror is a distorted one. (It's also terribly dated, but that's to be expected. 1971 was a LONG time ago.)
So, why would one bother to read this tome? There are three reasons; firstly, as an historic document. It is a great insight into the world of the hippie rebel. Then, it tells us more about Abbie Hoffman and that is important if we are to take the meat of his teaching on board. Finally, there are some nuggets of information which is still relevant in the current age.
Read it for fun and take the wisdom as a useful extra.