Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America
2017; Oxford University Press; Volume: 104; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/jahist/jax129
ISSN1945-2314
Autores Tópico(s)Psychedelics and Drug Studies
ResumoSteve Jobs was often reported to have remarked (fairly late in his life) that “taking LSD was a profound experience, one of the most important things in my life. LSD shows you that there's another side to the coin” (Drake Baer, “How Steve Job's Acid Fueled Quest for Enlightenment Made Him the Greatest Product Visionary in History,” Jan. 29, 2015, Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-lsd-meditation-zen-quest-2015-1.) Implicitly, both his vision for Apple and his distinctive management style had everything to do with his youthful trips on LSD. Why this could be so and what other impacts psychedelics have had on American culture are important questions for historians of the United States to ask and try to answer. Heads joins the short list of books that attempts to do so. Thoroughly researched and engaging, it focuses on the role played by the Grateful Dead and their associates in disseminating and popularizing LSD and other psychedelics. The story Jesse Jarnow tells is no linear sequence of chronology and cause and effect. Instead, readers are dropped into a swirling crowd of characters whose often-chance encounters with each other and the Grateful Dead had the effect of spreading the news of psychedelics—as well as the drugs themselves—across the United States and around the world.
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