Abbie Hoffman

This critical, comprehensive biography of the late radical Abbie Hoffman surveys in detail the politics, philosophies and struggles of the antiwar movement and, to a lesser extent, civil rights, feminism and environmentalism. Even though Jezer ( The Dark Ages: Life in the United States, 1945-1960 ) clearly respects Hoffman's ability to mobilize dissenters, he does not shirk from challenging Hoffman's attention-getting tactics, often perceived as clownish or macho. Jezer contends that the Jewish Hoffman's upbringing in conservative, largely non-Jewish, working-class Worcester, Mass., taught him to accept people of varied backgrounds and contributed to his energetic support of civil rights. His youth also led him to adopt a 'tough hood' stance that he never abandoned, and that did not allow him to fully practice nonviolence. Hoffman's formative education in radicalism at Brandeis and Berkeley, his support of antiwar political candidates and his founding of the politicized Yippie movement on Manhattan's Lower East Side are discussed. Anecdotal accounts of demonstrations are here in abundance; much attention is given to 'guerrilla theater,' police brutality and Hoffman's problems with the law on a cocaine-dealing charge. Little is made of his life outside the political arena, but the manic depression that led him to commit suicide in 1989, at age 53, is shown to have been an ever-present, worsening condition. Photos. Publishers Weekly

Do not be misled by the fact that this book was published by a university press. Jezer's biography offers a fascinating and eminently readable study of one of the most controversial and emblematic symbols of the 1960s. Jezer, himself a veteran of pacifist movements against the Vietnam War, traces Hoffman's evolution from Brandeis beatnik to Yippie leader and spokesperson for the Woodstock nation. As Jezer shows, Hoffman remained active around environmental and social justice issues during the narcissistic 1970s and the Reaganite 1980s. This warts-and-all portrait of a unique rabble-rouser is surprisingly witty, absorbing, and even significant. Highly recommended for all collections.'
- Kent Worcester, Social Science Research Council, New York Library Journal

A thoughtful, solidly researched biography of the wildly creative and iconoclastic yippie, portraying Hoffman as a fresh force in American political culture--and as a man ultimately sabotaged by bipolar disorder (manic-depression), which drove him to extremes and probably led to his suicide. In 1988, Jezer (the children's book Rachel Carson, 1978) ran into Hoffman in an airport. A veteran activist and countercultural journalist who'd known the famed radical from the early hippie days on the Lower East Side until the violent days on the streets of Chicago in 1968, Jezer embraced Hoffman and listened with growing unease as the time-battered yippie ranted on and on about how great everything was going. Hoffman would be dead the next year. From this almost Dostoyevskian image of a radical out of balance, consumed by his own raging misplaced energy (in this case, the hypomanic phase of bipolar disorder), Jezer traces Hoffman's early influences. From the time he was a middle-class Jewish teenager in Worcester, Mass., Hoffman loved to play the rebel street-fighting man. It was the famous humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, his professor at Brandeis, however, who inspired Hoffman to conceive of political protest as a positive expression, a means of self- actualization. In the ``Yippie!'' movement, founded with Jerry Rubin, Hoffman sought to fuse the creativity and individualism of the counterculture with the righteous spirit of the antiwar movement. Here, Hoffman appears as his own best creation--half Lenny Bruce, half political shaman, throwing cash off the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange, trying to levitate the Pentagon, proclaiming himself a member of the ``Woodstock Nation,'' not a place but a beautiful, free state of mind. Hoffman--and a whole doomed, inspired era--emerges vividly in this clear-eyed, richly detailed work. (Photographs--24 pages b&w.) Kirkus

This critical, comprehensive biography of the late radical Abbie Hoffman surveys in detail the politics, philosophies and struggles of the antiwar movement and, to a lesser extent, civil rights, feminism and environmentalism. Even though Jezer ( The Dark Ages: Life in the United States, 1945-1960 ) clearly respects Hoffman's ability to mobilize dissenters, he does not shirk from challenging Hoffman's attention-getting tactics, often perceived as clownish or macho. Jezer contends that the Jewish Hoffman's upbringing in conservative, largely non-Jewish, working-class Worcester, Mass., taught him to accept people of varied backgrounds and contributed to his energetic support of civil rights. His youth also led him to adopt a 'tough hood' stance that he never abandoned, and that did not allow him to fully practice nonviolence. Hoffman's formative education in radicalism at Brandeis and Berkeley, his support of antiwar political candidates and his founding of the politicized Yippie movement on Manhattan's Lower East Side are discussed. Anecdotal accounts of demonstrations are here in abundance; much attention is given to 'guerrilla theater,' police brutality and Hoffman's problems with the law on a cocaine-dealing charge. Little is made of his life outside the political arena, but the manic depression that led him to commit suicide in 1989, at age 53, is shown to have been an ever-present, worsening condition. Photos. Publishers Weekly

Do not be misled by the fact that this book was published by a university press. Jezer's biography offers a fascinating and eminently readable study of one of the most controversial and emblematic symbols of the 1960s. Jezer, himself a veteran of pacifist movements against the Vietnam War, traces Hoffman's evolution from Brandeis beatnik to Yippie leader and spokesperson for the Woodstock nation. As Jezer shows, Hoffman remained active around environmental and social justice issues during the narcissistic 1970s and the Reaganite 1980s. This warts-and-all portrait of a unique rabble-rouser is surprisingly witty, absorbing, and even significant. Highly recommended for all collections.'
- Kent Worcester, Social Science Research Council, New York Library Journal

A thoughtful, solidly researched biography of the wildly creative and iconoclastic yippie, portraying Hoffman as a fresh force in American political culture--and as a man ultimately sabotaged by bipolar disorder (manic-depression), which drove him to extremes and probably led to his suicide. In 1988, Jezer (the children's book Rachel Carson, 1978) ran into Hoffman in an airport. A veteran activist and countercultural journalist who'd known the famed radical from the early hippie days on the Lower East Side until the violent days on the streets of Chicago in 1968, Jezer embraced Hoffman and listened with growing unease as the time-battered yippie ranted on and on about how great everything was going. Hoffman would be dead the next year. From this almost Dostoyevskian image of a radical out of balance, consumed by his own raging misplaced energy (in this case, the hypomanic phase of bipolar disorder), Jezer traces Hoffman's early influences. From the time he was a middle-class Jewish teenager in Worcester, Mass., Hoffman loved to play the rebel street-fighting man. It was the famous humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, his professor at Brandeis, however, who inspired Hoffman to conceive of political protest as a positive expression, a means of self- actualization. In the ``Yippie!'' movement, founded with Jerry Rubin, Hoffman sought to fuse the creativity and individualism of the counterculture with the righteous spirit of the antiwar movement. Here, Hoffman appears as his own best creation--half Lenny Bruce, half political shaman, throwing cash off the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange, trying to levitate the Pentagon, proclaiming himself a member of the ``Woodstock Nation,'' not a place but a beautiful, free state of mind. Hoffman--and a whole doomed, inspired era--emerges vividly in this clear-eyed, richly detailed work. (Photographs--24 pages bw.) Kirkus

Here's the Abbie I knew and loved! Marty Jezer has captured him in all his complexity, dedication, humor, and heart. ANITA HOFFMAN

... details Hoffman's humor, manic energy, depressive spells, political skills, and above all, his Incurable and still contagious optimism. Entertainment Weekly

... deeply sympathetic and scrupulously detached-a triumph of judicious empathy. MARTIN DUBERMAN,, Distinguished Professor of History, Lehman/The Graduate School, C.U.N.Y.

... Abbie, more than any other radical, showed potheads how to demonstrate and radicals how to dance. Chicago Tribune