Professor of History Maurice Isserman was interviewed for a Houston Chronicle article (3/20/05) about countercultural entrepreneurs in the 1970s. According to the article, "Isserman said he does not believe there was a single hippie philosophy. Some believed in peace, love and community, he said, while others were about doing their own thing. Of course, many from the mainstream saw hippies as immoral, especially those who indulged in drugs and sexual promiscuity. 'The counterculture could pull in all directions,' Isserman said, but there was a connecting link: 'A demand for authenticity, and the feeling that America had gotten away from authentic human values.' Within the rejection of the inauthentic, he said, was a great opportunity for businesses to arise, whether it was a coffeehouse, pizza shop or bead store, 'something other than the normal plastic future,'" he said. Isserman is the author of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s (Oxford University Press).
