Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD, the CIA, the Sixties and Beyond Paperback – 26 Jan. 2001

by Martin A Lee (Author), Bruce Shlain (Author)

4.6 376 ratings

A social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the Sixties. This account - part of it gleaned from secret government files - tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early 1950s and how the drug then spread into the popular culture.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pan Books (26 Jan. 2001)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0330484818
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0330484817
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.5 x 3 x 21.6 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 3,046,152 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 3,786 in Military History of Military Intelligence & Espionage
- 4,412 in Espionage Biographies
- 5,061 in US Politics

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4.6 376 ratings

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Bruce Shlain
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4.6 out of 5

376 global ratings

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MA

great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 October 2019

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page turner

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Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 November 2016

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Fast shipment, book as described

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Jeff

Entertainingly wriiten summary of the drug culture around in my early "experimental" years.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 September 2015

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My adolescence described to an LSD.

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graham

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 May 2016

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loved it; very entertaining 7 informative..

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 9 April 2015

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Very informative, good quick delivery.thank you.

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S. D. Michalak

Fascinating, entertaining, amusing and scary.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2014

A fascinating insight into the social and political history of one of the most demonised and persecuted substances on the planet, complete with outrageous tales of CIA involvement, high level government shenanigans and comical interludes featuring some of the biggest names in sixties counterculture. A must-read for anyone with an enquiring mind.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 August 2009

Even though I haven't yet completed this book, I'm compelled to give it a five. Having been acquainted with the substance in question, it's fascinating to look back at its amazing story.

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David M. Hart

A wild ride indeed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2009

We have here a comprehensive overview of the impact of LSD on American society in the 50s and 60s. One cannot help but be appalled at the callousness and trickery of the CIA people who went around spiking unsuspecting people with acid in their optimistic quest for a truth serum. It's also disappointing to note that the standard medical assumptions about LSD, namely that its effects are merely to produce temporary madness, with no identifiable benefits, came to be used to justify its criminalisation, rather than than any rigorous testing to see whether it was dangerous enough to justify sending those who used it to jail.
Once the drug had inevitably leaked out into the wider population, it appears to have had a powerful catalysing effect on the radicals, protesters and hippies who came to be grouped together as the 'New Left' - not by directly stirring up aggression, but by bringing those who were involved into closer contact with each other and into greater detachment from the rest of society, thus allowing them to have an exaggerated view of their own ability to change the world. I was surprised to learn just how much violence and chaos a minority of acid enthusiasts were able to cause, and just how much utopianism allowed them to justify it.
We are taken through the glory days of Haight-Ashbury, and shown how swiftly the beautiful dream of its original hippie inhabitants turned sour as tourists, gangsters and heavy-handed police took over.

As a social history, the book does not deal in great depth with the biological effects of the drug, nor about its subjective effects on those who use it (though just about everything I've ever read about LSD suggests that the effects are just too weird to be described in words).

One thing that I feel is missing is an assesment of the legal regime that now surrounds acid. The author has scrupulously avoided looking at whether the prohibition of the drug actually makes society safer, or even acts as much of a deterrent to those who would wish to use it. My suspicion is that anyone who writes a book about any one particular drug, as opposed to drugs in general, is likely to be an enthusiast, but I suppose that issue is best left for other books.

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Claudia77

Arrivato leggermente danneggiato

Reviewed in Italy on 18 September 2022

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Rimandato perché acquisto errato. Poi anche leggermente danneggiato.

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Jaffar Karim

Best book ever

Reviewed in Germany on 10 January 2021

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Best book I’ve read in ages. Clearly this is THE BOOK to read on the subject. All other books I’e read on the subject are based more or less on this book. Though it’s been 50 years the end of the book says it all: it ain’t over yet!

alex

this is a must read! for everyone!

Reviewed in Canada on 3 December 2019

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mindblowing!
and all of it is documented.

Bernie Gourley

A microhistory of LSD as a potential mind-control agent and as an agent of cultural revolution

Reviewed in India on 28 February 2020

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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 chemicst, Albert Hofmann, after all,) but most of the central players are American and the book’s two primary lines of investigation are both centered on America. One of these lines involves the covert research program designed to discover if acid could be used as a truth serum, a mind-control agent, an incapacitant, or otherwise to the benefit of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other covert agencies. The other line is about the role that LSD played in the countercultural revolution of the 60’s and early 70’s.

The book’s flow begins more heavily focused on the covert programs, then gets into what was happening with the youth in the 60’s, and toward the end discusses where the proceeding lines seem to run together with individuals like Ronald Stark who was a drug smuggler involved with an organization called the “Brotherhood for Eternal Love” but who many suspected of having ties with (if not direct employment by) the CIA – and not entirely without reason (though not with sufficient evidence that firm conclusions are drawn in the book.) I should mention that this just the general flow. The book has a chronological flow with topical segments within, so it’s not like it deals with these issues entirely independently.

If the covert research program had been carried out by competent scientists using accepted methodologies, then the discussion of these programs would probably be at best moderately interesting. (To be fair, some competent science may have occurred, but it’s so unnoteworthy compared to the wild and pranksterish that it draws no attention.) What the reader learns, however, is fascinating because it involves clean-cut and seemingly respectable G-men spiking unwitting subjects with acid like a teenage prankster-idiot might do – but without the “excuse” of being immature, stoned, and having not yet learned to behave responsibly. Perhaps the most bizarre program was Operation Midnight Climax, in which CIA agents hired prostitutes in San Francisco to spike the drinks of their johns so they could find out if the customers got loose-lipped. A CIA agent would watch on, dutifully making pipe-cleaner twists of the various sexual positions performed by the sex-worker and her customer.

The civilian history follows a path from Hofmann’s discovery at Sandoz Laboratories (now owned by Novartis) through the early years of Al Hubbard (the so-called “Johnny Appleseed of LSD”) through the trials of Timothy Leary to others who figured in the heyday of LSD such as Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, and, finally, to the crackdown on psychedelics and the illicit smuggling rings that resulted. There is fascinating coverage of how Federal law enforcement tried to stifle production and smuggling of LSD, particularly with respect to training agents to infiltrate hippie organizations.

This book originally came out in the 80’s (though I read the 2007 edition) and while it has a post-script that discuss a bit of a resurgence that occurred beyond the 70’s, it doesn’t touch upon a more recent thaw in attitudes toward psychedelics as they’ve begun to be legalized (or sought out where they are legal) or the surge in popularity of “micro-dosing.” As of this book’s end all psychedelics remained Schedule I – a label which states that they have no legitimate medicinal value (which cooler heads have realized is blatantly wrong given substantial evidence that psychedelics can be of benefit in conquering addiction, in managing depression, and otherwise.)

I found this book intriguing. It’s a must-read if you are interested in any of the following topics: the 60’s counter-culture revolution, mind-control programs, or how public policy gets hijacked by history.

Michael

Intriguing, mind blowing book

Reviewed in Australia on 4 November 2023

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Anyone who wants to get an insight into the history, intrigues, politics and civil rights around the drug LSD, then this book is a must read. Easy, free flowing narrative packed with heaps of interesting and eye opening facts, which is a sign of a terrific author.

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Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD, the CIA, the Sixties and Beyond Paperback – 26 Jan. 2001

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Bruce Shlain

Martin A. Lee

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Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD, the CIA, the Sixties and Beyond Paperback – 26 Jan. 2001

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Product details

About the authors

Bruce Shlain

Martin A. Lee

Customer reviews

Top reviews from United Kingdom

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