Adventures in the Counterculture: From Hip Hop to High Times, by Steven Hager

Adventures in the Counterculture: From Hip Hop to High Times, by Steven Hager. 2002 first edition softcover. 247 pages, very nice condition.

Steven Hager (1951 -) is an American writer, journalist, filmmaker, and counterculture and cannabis rights activist. In 1988, Hager was hired as editor of High Times magazine. He is most famous for removing hard drugs (e.g., cocaine and heroin) from the magazine, and concentrating on advocating personal cultivation of cannabis. Hager created the Cannabis Cup, a cannabis awards ceremony held every Thanksgiving in Amsterdam, and The Freedom Fighters, the first hemp legalization group. In September 1991, Hager wrote an article in High Times titled "Heritage of Stone," (included here) a comprehensive analysis of the John F. Kennedy assassination that has been widely circulated on the internet as a definitive article on the subject. Judge Jim Garrison cited it as "the best magazine article ever written on the subject." The article indicated Kennedy was likely murdered because of his growing opposition to the Vietnam War, and implicated J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles in the cover-up.

This collection of eight articles by journalist Steven Hager covers the JFK assassination, the East Village art scene, the Rainbow Family, the Waco massacre, the Cannabis Cup awards in Amsterdam, out-of-control police, counterculture spirituality, and includes his groundbreaking essay on rap music and breakdancing in which he coined the term “hip hop.”