What do you think?
Rate this book
How I Accidentally Started The Sixties
Before Timothy Leary, before free love, before the word hippie became a part of the preferred nomenclature, Howard Bloom and his band of explorers were pushing boundaries and minds.
Embarking on a great journey that took him from his home in Buffalo, NY, to Washington, to California, to Israel, to New York City, along the way learning much and gaining in experience—some of that experience crushing the morals and mores of the previous generation—and most importantly, he gained insight.
Bloom horrified his parents, shocked his teachers, seeking the form of spiritual enlightenment called satori, and finding sex instead. How I Accidentally Started the Sixties is the untold story of the birth of a decade.
Embarking on a great journey that took him from his home in Buffalo, NY, to Washington, to California, to Israel, to New York City, along the way learning much and gaining in experience—some of that experience crushing the morals and mores of the previous generation—and most importantly, he gained insight.
Bloom horrified his parents, shocked his teachers, seeking the form of spiritual enlightenment called satori, and finding sex instead. How I Accidentally Started the Sixties is the untold story of the birth of a decade.
328 pages, Paperback
First published November 19, 2013
15 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Howard Bloom
25 books305 followers"I know a lot of people. A lot. And I ask a lot of prying questions. But I've never run into a more intriguing biography than Howard Bloom's in all my born days. " Paul Solman, Business and Economics Correspondent, PBS NewsHour
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 30, 2020
The book unfolds on the same course as the author’s life.
The depth, dimension, the level of life engagement and impact brew and blossom, if you allow.
The experience of reading along replicates unfolding of the author in life as it was for him, and in reading this through, feeling certainly worthwhile for you.
Not pompous. Not overstated. A full circle of evolving surprise.
The depth, dimension, the level of life engagement and impact brew and blossom, if you allow.
The experience of reading along replicates unfolding of the author in life as it was for him, and in reading this through, feeling certainly worthwhile for you.
Not pompous. Not overstated. A full circle of evolving surprise.
August 5, 2018
Very interesting read for those of us who remember the 50s 60s...
June 19, 2018
A beautiful and very entertaining biography of a very strange and varied life that also contains a lot of insight on the human plight.
The quintessential outsider, Bloom was bullied and excluded during his childhood and teenage years, but far from putting him down, this constant rejection sent him on a life long quest for experiences, knowledge and understanding that spanned the most varied walks of life, from the hippy culture to academia and the music industry. A truly remarkable journey that he shares with his readers in a very light and fluent prose full of marvelous insight.
The quintessential outsider, Bloom was bullied and excluded during his childhood and teenage years, but far from putting him down, this constant rejection sent him on a life long quest for experiences, knowledge and understanding that spanned the most varied walks of life, from the hippy culture to academia and the music industry. A truly remarkable journey that he shares with his readers in a very light and fluent prose full of marvelous insight.
April 6, 2023
I don't know why I find the author's works so interesting. He is loud, repetitious, more than a little prone to exaggeration putting it mildly, and relentlessly self aggrandizing. His science works are interesting enough though they fall far short of the grand synthesis they are purported to be. He is hardly the next Newton/Darwin/Einstein etc that he claims. There are a few interesting themes. But it's easy enough to come up with grand overviews and everyone thinks that their particular insights are so special. Who knows maybe some of them are. But the real work is in the nuts and the bolts - the hard details, proof and evidence - not the fuzzy generalities of pompous attention craving populists.
In this work we are treated to an autobiography. We can take the title suitably tongue in cheek as intended ... I think !? And it is quite fascinating. A wild man in wild times. Who manages to mention just about everything topical at the time. So a good memory jog if nothing else. But more than that a solid account of a striving and confused young man in strident and confusing times looking for his niche ... and lots of sexual encounters along the way. He finds his niche eventually, fame and fortune as a publicist and PR guy. Of course.
I'll try some of the political/economic overviews next. Where once again I'll be treated to the outbursts of Howard the genius who knows everything about everything. But he does know a lot and though often annoying he is never boring.
In this work we are treated to an autobiography. We can take the title suitably tongue in cheek as intended ... I think !? And it is quite fascinating. A wild man in wild times. Who manages to mention just about everything topical at the time. So a good memory jog if nothing else. But more than that a solid account of a striving and confused young man in strident and confusing times looking for his niche ... and lots of sexual encounters along the way. He finds his niche eventually, fame and fortune as a publicist and PR guy. Of course.
I'll try some of the political/economic overviews next. Where once again I'll be treated to the outbursts of Howard the genius who knows everything about everything. But he does know a lot and though often annoying he is never boring.
January 24, 2022
Took me forever to finish and just wasn’t that good?
February 3, 2018
A good read
Not much substance. I too am a child of the 60s and had more excitement in one summer than Mr. Bloom seems to have had in 25 years.
Not much substance. I too am a child of the 60s and had more excitement in one summer than Mr. Bloom seems to have had in 25 years.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews