Did It! From Yippie to Yuppie: Jerry Rubin, an American Revolutionary

Thomas (Listen, Whitey! The Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965–1975) captures the life and legacy of Jerry Rubin, a 1960s radical turned savvy businessman, in this illustrated biography of an American sellout. The book traces the trajectory of Rubin’s life from his birth in 1938 in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of a union leader, to his role in the antiwar movement of the ’60s as one of the founders of the theatrical militant group Youth International Party (or “Yippies”), through to his financial success as a businessman and early proponent of the self-improvement movement, to his death in 1994 when he was hit by a car while jaywalking in Los Angeles. Creatively presented in an anecdotal scrapbook style combining text, posters, flyers, diaries, calendars, photographs, and assorted ephemera, the book draws from 75 original interviews with Rubin’s friends and foes to create an oral-history-style biography. Along the way, Thomas captures electrifying moments from the last half century of American history. Color photos. (Aug.)