{"product_id":"book-hjyi","title":"Tripping on Utopia","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e Bestseller\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One of \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e's Best Books of 2024\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A bold and brilliant revisionist take on the history of psychedelics in the twentieth century, illuminating how a culture of experimental drugs shaped the Cold War and the birth of Silicon Valley.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Brilliant and original.\"―Charles King, author of \u003ci\u003eGods of the Upper Air\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMidnight at the Pera Palace\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"It was not the Baby Boomers who ushered in the first era of widespread drug experimentation. It was their parents.\"\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Far from the repressed traditionalists they are often painted as, the generation that survived the second World War emerged with a profoundly ambitious sense of social experimentation. In the '40s and '50s, transformative drugs rapidly entered mainstream culture, where they were not only legal, but openly celebrated. American physician John C. Lilly infamously dosed dolphins (and himself) with LSD in a NASA-funded effort to teach dolphins to talk. A tripping Cary Grant mumbled into a Dictaphone about Hegel as astronaut John Glenn returned to Earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At the center of this revolution were the pioneering anthropologists—and star-crossed lovers—Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Convinced the world was headed toward certain disaster, Mead and Bateson made it their life’s mission to reshape humanity through a new science of consciousness expansion, but soon found themselves at odds with the government bodies who funded their work, whose intentions were less than pure. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mead and Bateson's partnership unlocks an untold chapter in the history of the twentieth century, linking drug researchers with CIA agents, outsider sexologists, and the founders of the Information Age. As we follow Mead and Bateson’s fractured love affair from the malarial jungles of New Guinea to the temples of Bali, from the espionage of WWII to the scientific revolutions of the Cold War, a new origin story for psychedelic science emerges.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"This masterpiece of storytelling is underpinned by impeccable research and extraordinary material that will have you questioning everything you think you know about America's history of psychedelic drug use.\" —Lindsey Fitzharris, \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Facemaker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Hachette Book Group","offers":[{"title":"Audiobook","offer_id":49348566188336,"sku":"BDhjyi","price":31.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0879\/2784\/9264\/files\/hjyi-Square-cover.jpg?v=1771663385","url":"https:\/\/downpour.com\/products\/book-hjyi","provider":"Downpour","version":"1.0","type":"link"}