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Very Short Introductions #364
The Beats: A Very Short Introduction
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the writers of the Beat Generation revolutionized American literature with their iconoclastic approach to language and their angry assault on the conformity and conservatism of postwar society. They and their followers took aim at the hypocrisy and taboos of their time--particularly those involving sex, race, and class--in such provocative works as Jack Kerouac's On the Road (1957), Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1956), and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch (1959).
In this Very Short Introduction, David Sterritt offers a concise overview of the social, cultural, and aesthetic sensibilities of the Beats, bringing out the similarities that connected them and also the many differences that made them a loosely knit collective rather than an organized movement. Figures in the saga include Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Clellon Holmes, Carolyn Cassady, and Gary Snyder. As Sterritt ranges from Greenwich Village and San Francisco to Mexico, western Europe, and North Africa, he sheds much light on how the Beats approached literature, drugs, sexuality, art, music, and religion. Members of the Beat Generation hoped that their radical rejection of materialism, consumerism, and regimentation would inspire others to purify their lives and souls as well. Yet they urged the remaking of consciousness on a profoundly inward-looking basis, cultivating "the unspeakable visions of the individual," in Kerouac's phrase. The idea was to
revolutionize society by revolutionizing thought, not the other way around. This book explains how the Beats used their antiauthoritarian visions and radical styles to challenge dominant values, fending off absorption into mainstream culture while preparing ground for the larger, more explosive social upheavals of the 1960s.
More than half a century later, the Beats' impact can still be felt in literature, cinema, music, theater, and the visual arts. This compact introduction explains why.
About the
Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.
In this Very Short Introduction, David Sterritt offers a concise overview of the social, cultural, and aesthetic sensibilities of the Beats, bringing out the similarities that connected them and also the many differences that made them a loosely knit collective rather than an organized movement. Figures in the saga include Neal Cassady, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, John Clellon Holmes, Carolyn Cassady, and Gary Snyder. As Sterritt ranges from Greenwich Village and San Francisco to Mexico, western Europe, and North Africa, he sheds much light on how the Beats approached literature, drugs, sexuality, art, music, and religion. Members of the Beat Generation hoped that their radical rejection of materialism, consumerism, and regimentation would inspire others to purify their lives and souls as well. Yet they urged the remaking of consciousness on a profoundly inward-looking basis, cultivating "the unspeakable visions of the individual," in Kerouac's phrase. The idea was to
revolutionize society by revolutionizing thought, not the other way around. This book explains how the Beats used their antiauthoritarian visions and radical styles to challenge dominant values, fending off absorption into mainstream culture while preparing ground for the larger, more explosive social upheavals of the 1960s.
More than half a century later, the Beats' impact can still be felt in literature, cinema, music, theater, and the visual arts. This compact introduction explains why.
About the
Oxford's Very Short Introductions series offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, Literary Theory to History, and Archaeology to the Bible. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume in this series provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given discipline or field. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how the subject has developed and how it has influenced society. Eventually, the series will encompass every major academic discipline, offering all students an accessible and abundant reference library. Whatever the area of study that one deems important or appealing, whatever the topic that fascinates the general reader, the Very Short Introductions series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.
144 pages, Paperback
First published July 5, 2013
13 people are currently reading
268 people want to read
About the author
David Sterritt
36 books10 followersDavid Sterritt is a film critic, author and scholar. He is most notable for his work on Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard, and his many years as the Film Critic for The Christian Science Monitor, where, from 1968 until his retirement in 2005, he championed avant garde cinema, theater and music. He has a PhD in Cinema Studies from New York University and is the Chairman of the National Society of Film Critics. Sterritt is known for his intelligent discussions of controversial films and his lively, accessible style. He is particularly well known for his careful considerations of films with a spiritual connection, such as Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004).
His writings on film and film culture appear regularly in various publications, including The New York Times, MovieMaker Magazine, The Huffington Post, Senses of Cinema, Cineaste, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, Beliefnet, CounterPunch, and elsewhere. Sterritt has appeared as a guest on CBS Morning News, Nightline, Charlie Rose, Geraldo at Large, Catherine Crier Live, CNN Live Today, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The O'Reilly Factor, among many other television and radio shows.
Sterritt has written influentially on the film and culture of the 1950s, the Beat Generation, French New Wave cinema, the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Spike Lee and Terry Gilliam, and the TV series, The Honeymooners.
Sterritt began his career at Boston After Dark (now the Boston Phoenix), where he was Chief Editor. He then moved to The Christian Science Monitor, where he worked as the newspaper's Film Critic and Special Correspondent. During his tenure at the Monitor, Sterritt held a number of additional appointments. From 1978-1980 he was the Film Critic for All Things Considered, on National Public Radio. From 1969 to 1973, he was the Boston Theater Critic for Variety, and he sat on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival from 1988 to 1992. Between 1994 and 2002 he was Senior Critic at the National Critics Institute of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and he served as the video critic for Islands magazine from 2000-2003. From 2005-2007 he was Programming Associate at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y. He is a member of the National Editorial Advisory Group of Tikkun, sits on the Editorial Board of Quarterly Review of Film and Video, is a Contributing Writer to MovieMaker magazine, and the Chief Book Critic for Film Quarterly. Sterritt has also held a number of significant academic appointments. From 1999-2005 he was the Co-Chair, with William Luhr, of the Columbia University Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation. He is currently on the Film Studies Faculty at Columbia University's Graduate Film Division, and Adjunct Faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in the Department of Language, Literature and Culture and the Department of Art History. He is also Distinguished Visiting Faculty in the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and Professor Emeritus of Theater and Film at Long Island University, where he taught from 1993 to 2005, obtaining tenure in 1998.
Sterritt is the partner of psychoanalyst, author and cultural critic Mikita Brottman.
His writings on film and film culture appear regularly in various publications, including The New York Times, MovieMaker Magazine, The Huffington Post, Senses of Cinema, Cineaste, Film Comment, Film Quarterly, Beliefnet, CounterPunch, and elsewhere. Sterritt has appeared as a guest on CBS Morning News, Nightline, Charlie Rose, Geraldo at Large, Catherine Crier Live, CNN Live Today, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The O'Reilly Factor, among many other television and radio shows.
Sterritt has written influentially on the film and culture of the 1950s, the Beat Generation, French New Wave cinema, the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Spike Lee and Terry Gilliam, and the TV series, The Honeymooners.
Sterritt began his career at Boston After Dark (now the Boston Phoenix), where he was Chief Editor. He then moved to The Christian Science Monitor, where he worked as the newspaper's Film Critic and Special Correspondent. During his tenure at the Monitor, Sterritt held a number of additional appointments. From 1978-1980 he was the Film Critic for All Things Considered, on National Public Radio. From 1969 to 1973, he was the Boston Theater Critic for Variety, and he sat on the selection committee for the New York Film Festival from 1988 to 1992. Between 1994 and 2002 he was Senior Critic at the National Critics Institute of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and he served as the video critic for Islands magazine from 2000-2003. From 2005-2007 he was Programming Associate at the Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y. He is a member of the National Editorial Advisory Group of Tikkun, sits on the Editorial Board of Quarterly Review of Film and Video, is a Contributing Writer to MovieMaker magazine, and the Chief Book Critic for Film Quarterly. Sterritt has also held a number of significant academic appointments. From 1999-2005 he was the Co-Chair, with William Luhr, of the Columbia University Seminar on Cinema and Interdisciplinary Interpretation. He is currently on the Film Studies Faculty at Columbia University's Graduate Film Division, and Adjunct Faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in the Department of Language, Literature and Culture and the Department of Art History. He is also Distinguished Visiting Faculty in the Goldring Arts Journalism Program at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and Professor Emeritus of Theater and Film at Long Island University, where he taught from 1993 to 2005, obtaining tenure in 1998.
Sterritt is the partner of psychoanalyst, author and cultural critic Mikita Brottman.
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November 14, 2025
The Beats In The Very Short Introduction Series
The Very Short Introduction series of Oxford University Press offers readers "stimulating ways into new subjects". This description applies to David Sterritt's recent "very short introduction" to the Beats (2013). Sterritt, film professor at Columbia University and the Maryland Institute of Art, has written extensively about film, including the role of the Beats in American film.
In introducing his subject, Sterritt writes: "[i]n the late 1950s and early 1960s, a small group of writers challenged long-accepted tenents of American literature with their iconoclastic approach to language and their angry assault on the conformity and conservatism of postwar society." These writers became known as the Beats and centered around the figures of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Somewhat later, Sterritt ties the Beats in to the long tradition of literary Bohemians, defined as "a gypsy of society, one who either cuts himself off, or is by his habits cut off, from society for which he is otherwise fitted, especially an artist, literary man, or actor, who leads a free, vagabond, or irregular life, not being particular as to the society he frequents, and despising conventionalities generally." This definition of "Bohemian" from the Oxford English Dictionary captures much about the Beats.
Sterritt offers a broad portrayal of the Beats, juxtaposing them against the history and culture in which they arose. He finds the Beats rebelled in many ways against the society of the time. Sterritt ties the rebellion of the Beats to Eisenhower-era conservatism, but he overdoes it. The Beats did much of their work and established the characteristics of their movement in the late 1940's and pre-Eisenhower 1950's. The Beats rebelled against conformity and just getting along and sought new visions of themselves through literature, a more open attitude towards sexuality, drugs, and eastern religions. Although many of the Beats opposed the conservatism of the 1950s and became politically active, Kerouac, as Sterritt points out, did neither.
The Beats themselves offered short insightful summations of their goals that Sterritt quotes and discusses. Thus, in his novel "Visions of Cody", Kerouac wrote: "Everything belongs to me because I am poor." Kerouac also described his writing as seeking "the unspeakable vision of the individual". The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti described the Beats as seeking "a new birth of wonder" in a jaded world". Sterritt writes with sympathy and admiration for the Beats, their goals, and their accomplishments. He criticizes their "dark side", including the excesses of drug use, their sexism and other prejudices, and their tendency to withdraw into themselves.
In the following chapters of the book, Sterritt describes briefly the lives and works of leading Beat writers. Kerouac and Burroughs are the focus of the discussion of the Beat novel. The chapter of Beat poetry and other writings includes Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Ferlinghetti, Neal Cassady, LeRoi Jones, Diane Di Prima, Anne Waldman, and more. Concluding chapters describe the Beats in popular culture and their continuing impact.
Sterritt describes well the religious, philosophical aspects of the Beats with the strong interest of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Snyder in Buddhism. He also describes well the introspective character of much of the movement as the Beats tended to work on themselves individually. Sterritt himself has more sympathy for a socially-conscious and activist approach.
The book includes an excellent bibliography of works by and about the Beats which will be useful to new readers wanting to pursue the Beats further. Some of the many excellent quotations included in the text are not always adequately referenced to their source. Sterritt's "very short introduction" emphasizes the many literary contributions of the Beats and should encourage readers to do further exploration of this important American literary movement.
Robin Friedman
The Very Short Introduction series of Oxford University Press offers readers "stimulating ways into new subjects". This description applies to David Sterritt's recent "very short introduction" to the Beats (2013). Sterritt, film professor at Columbia University and the Maryland Institute of Art, has written extensively about film, including the role of the Beats in American film.
In introducing his subject, Sterritt writes: "[i]n the late 1950s and early 1960s, a small group of writers challenged long-accepted tenents of American literature with their iconoclastic approach to language and their angry assault on the conformity and conservatism of postwar society." These writers became known as the Beats and centered around the figures of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs. Somewhat later, Sterritt ties the Beats in to the long tradition of literary Bohemians, defined as "a gypsy of society, one who either cuts himself off, or is by his habits cut off, from society for which he is otherwise fitted, especially an artist, literary man, or actor, who leads a free, vagabond, or irregular life, not being particular as to the society he frequents, and despising conventionalities generally." This definition of "Bohemian" from the Oxford English Dictionary captures much about the Beats.
Sterritt offers a broad portrayal of the Beats, juxtaposing them against the history and culture in which they arose. He finds the Beats rebelled in many ways against the society of the time. Sterritt ties the rebellion of the Beats to Eisenhower-era conservatism, but he overdoes it. The Beats did much of their work and established the characteristics of their movement in the late 1940's and pre-Eisenhower 1950's. The Beats rebelled against conformity and just getting along and sought new visions of themselves through literature, a more open attitude towards sexuality, drugs, and eastern religions. Although many of the Beats opposed the conservatism of the 1950s and became politically active, Kerouac, as Sterritt points out, did neither.
The Beats themselves offered short insightful summations of their goals that Sterritt quotes and discusses. Thus, in his novel "Visions of Cody", Kerouac wrote: "Everything belongs to me because I am poor." Kerouac also described his writing as seeking "the unspeakable vision of the individual". The poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti described the Beats as seeking "a new birth of wonder" in a jaded world". Sterritt writes with sympathy and admiration for the Beats, their goals, and their accomplishments. He criticizes their "dark side", including the excesses of drug use, their sexism and other prejudices, and their tendency to withdraw into themselves.
In the following chapters of the book, Sterritt describes briefly the lives and works of leading Beat writers. Kerouac and Burroughs are the focus of the discussion of the Beat novel. The chapter of Beat poetry and other writings includes Allen Ginsburg, Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Ferlinghetti, Neal Cassady, LeRoi Jones, Diane Di Prima, Anne Waldman, and more. Concluding chapters describe the Beats in popular culture and their continuing impact.
Sterritt describes well the religious, philosophical aspects of the Beats with the strong interest of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Snyder in Buddhism. He also describes well the introspective character of much of the movement as the Beats tended to work on themselves individually. Sterritt himself has more sympathy for a socially-conscious and activist approach.
The book includes an excellent bibliography of works by and about the Beats which will be useful to new readers wanting to pursue the Beats further. Some of the many excellent quotations included in the text are not always adequately referenced to their source. Sterritt's "very short introduction" emphasizes the many literary contributions of the Beats and should encourage readers to do further exploration of this important American literary movement.
Robin Friedman
January 20, 2016
Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we...will probably write poems, drink more, and do an insane amount of drugs, and eventually...die. O the life of a Beat.
July 7, 2021
A great introduction to the Beat generation.
I learned a great many things from Kerouac's horrific anti-semitism, to details of the lesser known Beats such as Holmes and Snyder.
I particularly like how Sterritt says the Beats were concerned with 'unspeakable visions of the individual'. Their focus on introspection clashing with their effect on culture is something I'd never considered before.
My takeaway is to read works by Burroughs. I dismissed him as a morally decrepit addict for shooting his wife in the head, but Sterritt's book suggests he is more nuanced, and sorrowful than I realised.
I learned a great many things from Kerouac's horrific anti-semitism, to details of the lesser known Beats such as Holmes and Snyder.
I particularly like how Sterritt says the Beats were concerned with 'unspeakable visions of the individual'. Their focus on introspection clashing with their effect on culture is something I'd never considered before.
My takeaway is to read works by Burroughs. I dismissed him as a morally decrepit addict for shooting his wife in the head, but Sterritt's book suggests he is more nuanced, and sorrowful than I realised.
July 14, 2016
A superb very short introduction to the Beats!
January 18, 2017
Does just what it sets out to do & is neither too judgmental nor too adoring.
June 26, 2022
This great little introduction to the Beats is a fantastic preface to reading the Beats, which I imagine is great for the new reader and I’d recommend it before diving in as many of its authors refer to each other (often by alias) as part of their wider cannon of 50’s American lit.
It’s critical and gives context and background as any decent introduction should. Before diving into Kerouac I’d recommend Steve Turner’s Angelheaded Hipster too to maximise your readiness but neither is necessary but both recommended by me for a deeper understanding. The Beats are all about their relationships and motivations with/from each other.
It’s critical and gives context and background as any decent introduction should. Before diving into Kerouac I’d recommend Steve Turner’s Angelheaded Hipster too to maximise your readiness but neither is necessary but both recommended by me for a deeper understanding. The Beats are all about their relationships and motivations with/from each other.
January 1, 2026
I kind of wish the last two chapters were more towards the beginning but otherwise this is quite a good book. I’m not the biggest fan of the Beats as a genre because I find it a bit snobby but I find the era and culture extremely interesting
December 13, 2022
too general
November 28, 2021
Read for Nonfiction November.
February 24, 2022
This is the most fascinating book I’ve read in the VSI (Very Short Introductions) series, and I read a lot of these books as a means to mainline the gist of various academic subjects. I should point out that the subject matter is more colorful than the average scholarly topic. The Beats were a 1950’s American countercultural literary movement that some may confuse with the hippies of the 60’s, but which was different in many ways. As is emphasized in the book, the Beats were more about revolutions from within than they were about upending society. In that sense, they might have more in common with the Transcendentalists (i.e. Emerson, Thoreau, etc.) than the hippies. That said, some Beats did flow pretty smoothly from one movement to the next, and were both interested in revolution from within and without – most notably, Allen Ginsberg.
The first thing that one finds compelling is the biographical sketches of key Beat figures (i.e. chapters 3 and 4 on Beat novelists and poets, respectively.) A disturbing number of Beats lived tragically short lives, owing to drugs, alcohol (e.g. Kerouac,) and sometimes just being around a violent contrarian. Even the Beats who lived long lives had their share of outlandishness, such as William Burroughs killing his wife, Joan Vollmer, in an ill-fate William Tell imitation. (Those who know Burroughs from later in his career may wonder why he even had a wife, being gay and all. That’s just one of the ways that hidden, latent, and repressed homosexuality plays out as tragedy in the Beat story of the socially conservative 1950’s.)
The second thing I found absorbing was the discussion of how these writers and poets made art. Like the aforementioned Transcendentalists, the Beats drew heavily on Eastern philosophies and psychologies – most notably Buddhism, and Zen, in particular. Beat authors not only looked to the East for subject matter and aesthetics, but also to help them achieve the spontaneity and nowness associated with Zen. However, this wasn’t wholesale conversion to Buddhism, it remained a uniquely American strain, and also sought to draw inspiration from that most American of arts, Jazz.
If you’re interested in the Beats or their approach to writing, I’d highly recommend reading this book.
The first thing that one finds compelling is the biographical sketches of key Beat figures (i.e. chapters 3 and 4 on Beat novelists and poets, respectively.) A disturbing number of Beats lived tragically short lives, owing to drugs, alcohol (e.g. Kerouac,) and sometimes just being around a violent contrarian. Even the Beats who lived long lives had their share of outlandishness, such as William Burroughs killing his wife, Joan Vollmer, in an ill-fate William Tell imitation. (Those who know Burroughs from later in his career may wonder why he even had a wife, being gay and all. That’s just one of the ways that hidden, latent, and repressed homosexuality plays out as tragedy in the Beat story of the socially conservative 1950’s.)
The second thing I found absorbing was the discussion of how these writers and poets made art. Like the aforementioned Transcendentalists, the Beats drew heavily on Eastern philosophies and psychologies – most notably Buddhism, and Zen, in particular. Beat authors not only looked to the East for subject matter and aesthetics, but also to help them achieve the spontaneity and nowness associated with Zen. However, this wasn’t wholesale conversion to Buddhism, it remained a uniquely American strain, and also sought to draw inspiration from that most American of arts, Jazz.
If you’re interested in the Beats or their approach to writing, I’d highly recommend reading this book.
October 12, 2015
I had no idea what 'The Beats' referred to before I started this book. Literally not a clue. I had heard of Jack Kerouac, but had never heard his name connected to this term, and that was pretty much it. Unfortunately, the author of this book assumed a certain amount of prior knowledge, under the assumption (I assume) that everyone must have heard of them. I suppose this is an easy trap to fall into when you're an expert. The main result of this was that the book had no coherent narrative and left me with still only a vague and ill-defined idea of what 'The Beats' means. It gives some interesting insights into mid-twentieth-century America, but that's about it.
Chapter 1: Origins and essences
Chapter 2: Beats, beatniks, bohemians, and all that jazz
Chapter 3: The Beat novel: Kerouac and Burroughs
Chapter 4: Beat poetry and more: Ginsberg, Corso, and Company
Chapter 5: The Beats and popular culture
Chapter 6: The Beat legacy
Chapter 1: Origins and essences
Chapter 2: Beats, beatniks, bohemians, and all that jazz
Chapter 3: The Beat novel: Kerouac and Burroughs
Chapter 4: Beat poetry and more: Ginsberg, Corso, and Company
Chapter 5: The Beats and popular culture
Chapter 6: The Beat legacy
July 25, 2021
This is yet another excellent overview and primer on a limited subject. In just 108 pages, Sterritt defines what the Beat phenomenon was (and in some ways, still is), what all it entailed, and then discusses some of the major figures in novels, music, poetry, and art, as well as a brief discussion of the conception of the Beats in popular culture, and the legacy of the Beats. Personally, I found this interesting because (a) I didn't really know a whole lot about the Beats (despite having read Junk and On the Road and Howl and Naked Lunch) and wanted to know more, and (b) because unlike many of the Very Short Introductions I've read on history and literary topics (Chaucer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Dickens, Byzantium, World War II, the Harlem Renaissance, the Holy Roman Empire, etc.), this volume covers an era during which I was actually alive. I was born in 1956, On the Road was published in 1957, and Naked Lunch was published in 1959. Of course, I didn't read those works until years later, but still, this volume covers events (in the 1960's and beyond) of which I was aware, by people who were still alive and active in my lifetime. That gives an immediacy that reading about, say, 19th Century British Romanticism or the Etruscan empire, doesn't have.
November 9, 2023
The Beats : A Very Short Introduction (2013) by David Sterritt is a worthy addition to the Very Short Introduction series that describes the Beat Generation. Sterritt was a film critic for many years and has a PhD in Cinema Studies.
The book describes the ‘Origins and essences’ of the Beat Generation and places them into historical context. This is expanded by discussing Beatniks and Bohemeans. Then the output of the Beats is described with novels, including Kerouac, Burroughs, Holmes and others. Beat poetry is next described with Ginsberg, Corso and more. The impact of the Beats on popular culture and their longer legacy is then investigated.
The book does a good job. Sterritt writes well about the lives of Kerouac and company and their major works. Given the length it does a really good job. Sterritt also writes about how the Beats aged, how badly they treated women and each other. He includes that Ginsberg supported NAMBLA, which provides a fuller picture.
The Beats is well worth a read for anyone interested in the Beats, it would be a good follow on to reading ‘On the Road’.
The book describes the ‘Origins and essences’ of the Beat Generation and places them into historical context. This is expanded by discussing Beatniks and Bohemeans. Then the output of the Beats is described with novels, including Kerouac, Burroughs, Holmes and others. Beat poetry is next described with Ginsberg, Corso and more. The impact of the Beats on popular culture and their longer legacy is then investigated.
The book does a good job. Sterritt writes well about the lives of Kerouac and company and their major works. Given the length it does a really good job. Sterritt also writes about how the Beats aged, how badly they treated women and each other. He includes that Ginsberg supported NAMBLA, which provides a fuller picture.
The Beats is well worth a read for anyone interested in the Beats, it would be a good follow on to reading ‘On the Road’.
December 31, 2020
A Great Intro to a Revolutionary Literature Movement
The literate era and the authors discussed in this work are major influencers of not only today's literature, but also today's pop culture. The authors mentioned were the rule-breakers --dare I say, the "rebels"-- that helped shape our pop culture and writing societies. Think of them as how jazz or rock n' roll were referenced when they made a huge impact; these were authors "influenced by the devil and sin". The Beat authors were blunt, honest, and forward. If it weren't for them, quite a bit of work and art we have today may be only hidden in innuendos and suggestive improv as they were in previous centuries. In short, the Beats broke the rules and broaden the playing field for future writers and anything or anyone influenced by their work.
The literate era and the authors discussed in this work are major influencers of not only today's literature, but also today's pop culture. The authors mentioned were the rule-breakers --dare I say, the "rebels"-- that helped shape our pop culture and writing societies. Think of them as how jazz or rock n' roll were referenced when they made a huge impact; these were authors "influenced by the devil and sin". The Beat authors were blunt, honest, and forward. If it weren't for them, quite a bit of work and art we have today may be only hidden in innuendos and suggestive improv as they were in previous centuries. In short, the Beats broke the rules and broaden the playing field for future writers and anything or anyone influenced by their work.
September 8, 2025
Świetna książka a przy okazji bardzo przyjemne odkrycie ciekawej serii - A Very Short Introduction. Jeśli wszystkie książki z tej serii są tak dobre to na pewno będę po nie sięgać. Czego się dowiedziałem? O dziwo bardzo wiele. Pomijając oczywistości jak notki biograficzne „mniej znanych” bitników (btw dowiedziałem się też że Kerouac nienawidził tego określenia ukutego przez dziennikarza od Sputnik), poznałem ciekawą narrację historyczną prowadzącą do powstania tej nieformalnej grupy, rozprawiono się tutaj z kilkoma mitami i fajnie nakreślono ich styl życia na przestrzeni lat. Najwięcej miejsca zajmuje biografia Jacka Kerouaca.
April 8, 2022
As promised, a short but reasonably comprehensive introduction. The book starts with a solid discussion of the major themes and ideas shared among the Beats, and some of the influences behind their non-conformist attitudes. It then goes into a substantial discussion of the lives and works of its major authors (and not just the usual suspects of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs). The final chapter, on the legacy and influence of the Beats, was the weakest part of the book for me, and seemed rather vague and hurried. But overall, a good work for learning about this interesting group of writers.
March 3, 2025
My 5 star rating is for the book by David Sterritt, because it really is well-researched and comprehensive. I like the clear, concise writing style, as well. I just wish I could give zero stars to all the gross beat writers who I hate the more I learn about - Ginsberg and his NAMBLA advocacy, Burroughs who said that "women were God's first mistake", and Kerouac who abandoned his only daughter because his mommy wanted him to and then drank himself to death in mommy's kitchen. F these guys! Such overrated writers, too. If I could, I would go stamp a big zero on each of their graves!
February 24, 2023
Really helpful intro to a topic I know nothing about. Helped me place the Beats in historical and artistic context.
May 28, 2023
Nice little intro piece.
I like this series, good little overviews.
I like this series, good little overviews.
March 11, 2024
i don’t know why i thought i would like jack kerouac tbh
December 21, 2025
Quite informative. If you've ever wondered about the Beats, this is your book.
November 19, 2015
This exhilarating tiny-textbook details the Beat movement and its characters in a way that is concise without sacrificing vividness. Descriptions of people, situations, and milestone literary events are used to reanimate this historical art movement (which if you ask me, still pulses). Any inhibitions I had about reading a 'Very Short Introduction' book are now smashed. Praise be to David Sterritt for telling colorful stories through facts.
February 13, 2015
Interesting summary but fails in the finale to discuss true Beat legacy
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews