Independent Historian and Author, David McGowan on his book,
Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream
David McGowan on the thesis of his book: To the extent that it has a central thesis, I would say that it is that the music and counterculture scene that sprung to life in the 1960s was not the organic, grassroots resistance movement that it is generally perceived to be, but rather a movement that was essentially manufactured and steered. And a corollary to that would be that for a scene that was supposed to be all about peace, love and understanding, there was a very dark, violent underbelly that this book attempts to expose.