Sticking It To The Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980

From civil rights and Black Power to the New Left and gay liberation, the 1960s and 1970s saw a host of movements shake the status quo.

The impact of feminism, anti-colonial struggles, wildcat industrial strikes, and antiwar agitation were all felt globally. With social strictures and political structures challenged at every level, pulp and popular fiction could hardly remain unaffected. Feminist, gay, lesbian, Black and other previously marginalised authors broke into crime, thrillers, erotica, and other paperback genres previously dominated by conservative, straight, white males. For their part, pulp hacks struck back with bizarre takes on the revolutionary times, creating fiction that echoed the Nixonian backlash and the coming conservatism of Thatcherism and Reaganism.

Sticking It to the Man tracks the ways in which the changing politics and culture of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s were reflected in pulp and popular fiction in the United States, the UK, and Australia.