The "cultural history" stuff, as several critics have pointed out, is not anywhere near as compelling as the info gathered from declassified CIA files, which all sounds like the invention of some rambling ancient hippie rotting in an incense store somewhere, but, you know, isn't. Takeaways: Humans are really weird ape-things and it's hard to believe the world isn't much, much worse off than it isTimothy Leary was a complete jackass who ruined everything for everyoneLSD is not a magic molecule th...

I read this book for a class I took at PSU. Such a great book. Sheds light on all the lies and chaos of the 1960s. Great reference book for how LSD changed America. One of my favorite books.

This was a collection of everything I've ever heard or read about lsd In chronological order. Although the beginning about the CIA was fascinating, and not something I knew much about before. As I had expected, it didn't go into depth about very much. If you want to learn the basics of the history of acid and only want to read one book on the subject this is the book for you.

I'm one of those weirdos who does not find the prospect of doing LSD or other drugs in a recreational fashion interesting at all. It was with a lot of surprise that I found that I enjoyed this book! It is impeccably researched, well-written, and, in parts, terrifying (particularly in the early chapters, which cover the CIA's quest to find a "truth serum" and its efforts to that end, including MK-ULTRA). Anyone who is interested in the 1960s (warts and all), the less-savory aspects of government

This book was somewhat interesting but didn’t really live up to its subtitle—“The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond.” It conveys something…ambitious. And I think that maybe that is this book’s problem—in the end, it just tries to cover too much ground.I felt like the book was way too focused on Tim Leary, and the problem is that he’s just not that interesting of a guy. Or if he is, this book didn’t do much to get that across. For all the ink spilled about him here,...

These gentlemen did their homework and I am proud to have not only read their research but purchased new copies of their book more than 20x to send out to those who were led to believe the media lies of the 60s. Their documentation is perfect and succinct.The 60s movement could have worked. I know this because I have implemented it often on small scale settings; frightening the knickers off of those in charge. Now the methods remain as my legacy in 4 novels to build a more perfect union. Good lu...

The history of LSD is about as wild as you'd expect, ranging from the first CIA-spearheaded acid tests of the 1950s to the violent radicalism of the mysterious Weathermen fifteen years later to the quiet bust of enigmatic international kingpin Ronald Stark in the 1980s. This book itself is a trip (though admittedly a bit outdated now), examining--as the subtitle promises--not only LSD the drug but also LSD the culture, LSD the movement, LSD the menace. It's a surprisingly lucid narrative and whi...

This is a microhistory of America’s interaction with LSD. LSD, commonly called “acid” from its full name Lysergic acid diethylamide, is a chemical substance that was originally derived from ergot fungus, and which causes distortion of perception, an altered state of consciousness, and – in some cases – hallucinations. When I say it’s American history, that’s an oversimplification because many of the events described happen overseas (e.g. LSD’s own story begins in Switzerland with chemist, Albert...

I blame the CIA for Evolve music festival

The subtitle of this book says "The complete social history of LSD: the CIA, the sixties, and beyond." In a nutshell, this is an entirely accurate summary. Lee and Shlain trace the strange journey of LSD from an experimental military chemical, to a psychiatric wonderdrug, to a driving forces of the 60s counter-culture, and possibly its demise. This book is more journalistic than academic, but it is deeply sourced and informed. The authors are pro-psychedelic but fully recognize the limits of che...

A fascinating history of one of the most powerful chemicals ever synthesized, the government agencies that tried unsuccessfully to turn it into a weapon and then, even less successfully, to contain it after the proverbial genie was out of the bottle. Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Albert Hoffman and Aldous Huxley and several other well-known characters whose lives were inextricably linked to the story of LSD, make their expected appearances, some more fleshed out than others. We are also introduced t...

I recall first reading about this book in an advertisement in the then-weekly, now-defunct Guardian weekly out of New York City. I was greatly intrigued and resolved to keep an eye open for it. Years later I actually found the book and snapped it up, reading it almost immediately. I was not disappointed. Indeed, I was impressed by both the quality of the writing and by the material covered.This is, generally speaking, a social history of the influence of psychotropics such as LSD on Western cult...

Then I got to wondering what Times were like before they had a-changed, that is, before I was; what kind of world was there to shape me so: Weathermen full of more than sound and fury, the CIA's autoespionage, panthers Black hiding charismatic ex-Ivy drug-pushing jailbreakers in Algeria or White dropping tabs on radicals at my own alma mater (so weird to say) where a mathematical prodigy would graduate to rail against the progress of technology; mentally neotenous human analogues of stamens, ste...

It's still as entertaining and worth reading as it was twenty years ago. Covering the movements from the Diggers to the Yippies alongside government research and misuse, "Acid Dreams: the Complete Social History of LSD", is a treasure.

Breif: This was a mind clenching book for it was mostly about conspiracys done by the CIA in the United States of America to find a truth Serium. Eventually, the truth serium, was found to be L.S.D. and it spreed to all forms of American culture. It also talked about the Nazi Scientist who worked on American Soldiers to find this serium. It was interesting to read, and really makes you question what is going on in the world today. This is why I really enjoyed this book.Samantha KerncSeptember 23...

Fuck the CIA

Given the fact that the CIA got pretty high billing in the title, I was expecting this book to mainly be about the CIA's acid tests. That is one of the several things that this book is about. It's for the most part about all the political and social movements that were united by, uh, dropping a lot of acid -- the Merry Pranksters, Timothy Leary and his ilk, the Yippies, tangentially sort of the SDS, and also the Weathermen. I'd recommend this pretty much to anyone looking for a social history of...

Really interesting read!

Great read for anyone interested in LSD and its historical involvement with the American government, the CIA, and the hippie movement. Significant text with important information.