Fear and Loathing at 40

One of the best books about the 60's, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, turns 40 today.  If anyone wants to understand how the 60's turned into the 70's (and then into the 80's), they should read Fear and Loathing, which explains it better than any history or sociology book.

"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning….Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting – on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

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