Contracultura

“A masterful work of cultural history, sure to be of compelling interest to any student of Brazil in the 1970s and of Latin American counterculture more generally.”—HAHR

“Dunn’s recurring discussions of the importance of a collective politics of style, his attention to geographic and imagined spaces of countercultural practice, and his analysis of the relationship of the counterculture to a growing consumer culture are especially worth noting. The book is a tour de force of both historical and cultural analysis that will push our understandings of counterculture and of its political potential. It should be of enormous interest to scholars of the long Sixties anywhere.”—The Sixties

“Contracultura talks about alternative cultural attitudes during the Brazilian military dictatorship, where arts, writing, journalism, sexual liberation and drugs could serve as escape valves from political repression, censorship and moralism. Christopher Dunn’s book thus contributes to the memory of a taboo time that continues to affect the present of Brazilian history.”—Journal of American Studies in Italy

“Contracultura will become the foundational work in English on Brazil’s countercultural movement during the long 1960s. Revealing with tremendous insight and nuance the cross-currents of cultural protest, left-wing politics, state authoritarianism, and market forces, Christopher Dunn not only highlights the diversity of countercultural movements that emerged concurrently across Latin America during this period but also rightfully affirms the definitive place of Brazil’s contracultura within that landscape.”—Eric Zolov, Stony Brook University

“Beautifully written and stylistically brilliant, Christopher Dunn’s lucid analysis of the Brazilian counterculture, which deserves as much attention as the North American one, lays out a new field of study. Conveying multiple points of view — the radicals and counterculturalists as seen even in the eyes of the police — this book is a page-turner.”—Robert Stam, New York University