Psychedelic Chile

Book cover of Psychedelic Chile: Youth, Counterculture, and Politics on the Road to Socialism and Dictatorship

Book description

Patrick Barr-Melej here illuminates modern Chilean history with an unprecedented chronicle and reassessment of the sixties and seventies. During a period of tremendous political and social strife that saw the election of a Marxist president followed by the terror of a military coup in 1973, a youth-driven, transnationally connected counterculture…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Psychedelic Chile as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Eric Zolov

Author

Vibrant countercultural scenes grounded in local rock movements transpired across virtually every country in Latin America during the 1960s-70s. There are now several important books that examine various facets of these countercultural movements, and Barr-Melej’s is one of the best in that respect. Focusing on the brief period of Socialist President Salvador Allende (1970-73), his discussion of Chilean jipis and the political battles waged by the Left to contain this so-called foreign import is fascinating. The book falls short in providing an earlier context to the rise of Chile’s countercultural movement and ends abruptly with the rise of dictatorship—a period…

From Eric's list on Latin American culture and politics in the 1960s-70s.