A hipster critique of popular culture that demolishes the persistent fantasy that one can create an "alternative lifestyle" -- cultural acts of rebellion, rather than undoing the system, have become the system.
"Charting the counterculture from its hippie beatification in the '60s, the authors demonstrate how both it and succeeding variations, however punkish or nerdish, have been routinely subsumed into the consumer-fueled machinery of American capitalism....the hippie ethos was always destined to live on primarily in mainstream merchandising. ...it's the constant need to make one's nonconformity identifiable to others through the purchase of brand goods and services-an entire lifestyle-that charges the engine of consumption. The technical genius of capitalism adapts to accommodate the need-for example, by now building several different kinds of cars on the same assembly line-while at the same time taking the steam out of typical counterculture rants against 'mass marketing.'....an intriguing examination of personal freedom within the inevitabilities of a market economy." -Kirkus Reviews "Nation of Rebels provides an incisive and witty indictment of consumer trends...." -BusinessWeek Less
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