Robert Greenfield – författare

The Fascinating Life of Owsley Stanley III: LSD Pioneer, Grateful Dead Soundman, and Counterculture IconBear is the definitive biography of Augustus Owsley Stanley III, better known as "Bear," one of the most iconic figures in the cultural revolution that transformed America and the world during the 1960s. As the creator of the famous dancing bear logo and the designer of the Wall of Sound for the Grateful Dead, Owsley left an indelible mark on the counterculture movement.Owsley''s high-octane rocket fuel powered Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters'' Acid Tests, fueled the performances at Monterey Pop, and turned on music legends like Pete Townshend of The Who and Jimi Hendrix. His shipment of LSD to John Lennon even inspired The Beatles'' Magical Mystery Tour album and film.Convinced that the Grateful Dead were destined for greatness, Owsley provided the financial support that kept the band going during their early days. As their longtime soundman, he faithfully recorded many of their greatest live performances and designed the massive, space-age Wall of Sound system.In this masterful biography, award-winning author Robert Greenfield brings Owsley''s incredible life and times into full focus, offering a fascinating portrait of a true counterculture legend.

To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, "Tune in, turn on, drop out" became a mantra and its popularizer, Dr. Timothy Leary, a guru. In the handsome, charismatic Leary, the youth of the 1960s found someone who promised it all: self-liberation, hedonistic satisfaction, and spiritual fulfillment.

While in Mexico in 1960, Leary, then a lecturer and brilliant psychologist at Harvard, tried magic mushrooms for the first time. He became first intrigued and then obsessed by the effects of the psychedelic drugs. Under the aegis of Aldous Huxley, Leary launched the Harvard Psychadelic Project and transformed himself into a psychadelic messiah.What began as research into human consciousness turned into a mission to alter consciousness itself.

For the next three decades, Leary''s life was a roller-coaster ride of glamour and scandal, drug-induced epiphanies, and endless legal problems. After he died in Los Angeles in 1996, his ashes were shot into outer space—his last trip.

In this first major biography of one of the most controversial figures in postwar America, Robert Greenfield immerses the reader in the life and times of a compelling but troubled icon. The supporting cast of characters in this fascinating book reads like a who''s who of popular culture in twentieth-century America. At the center of the maelstrom he created everywhere he went is Leary himself: a gifted but self-mythologizing addict of fame and notoriety who seized his moment in the spotlight and refused to let it go.