Forty years after the fact, 1960s counterculture—personified by hippies, protest, and the Summer of Love—basks in a nostalgic glow in the popular imagination as a turning point in modern American history and the end of the age of innocence. Yet, while the era has come to be synonymous with rebellion and opposition, its truth is much more complex.

In a bold reconsideration of the late sixties San Francisco counterculture movement, Counterculture Kaleidoscope takes a close look at the cultural and musical practices of that era. Addressing the conventional wisdom that the movement was grounded in rebellion and opposition, the book exposes two myths: first, that the counterculture was an organised social and political movement of progressives with a shared agenda who opposed the mainstream (dubbed ""hippies""); and second, that the counterculture was an innocent entity hijacked by commercialism and transformed over time into a vehicle of so-called ""hip consumerism.""

Seeking an alternative to the now common narrative, Nadya Zimmerman examines primary source material including music, artwork, popular literature, personal narratives, and firsthand historical accounts. She reveals that the San Francisco counterculture wasn't interested in commitments to causes and made no association with divisive issues—that it embraced everything in general and nothing in particular.