''Bomb Culture'' is a book by

Jeff Nuttall Jeffrey Addison Nuttall (8 July 1933 – 4 January 2004) was an English poet, publisher, actor, painter, sculptor, jazz trumpeter, anarchist and social commentator who was a key part of the British 1960s counter-culture. He was the brother of l ...

about the

counter-culture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, which was first published in 1968.

Summary

It reflected the influence of the threat of nuclear war, while describing the importance of pop music like

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...

and countercultural figures like the

Beat Generation The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Genera ...

. Nuttall believed in the liberatory power of imagination and "affect", which he hoped could bring about social change.

Publication history

A new, expanded edition was published b
Strange Attractor Press
in December 2018. It features a new foreword by

Iain Sinclair Iain Sinclair FRSL (born 11 June 1943) is a writer and filmmaker. Much of his work is rooted in London, recently within the influences of psychogeography. Biography Education Sinclair was born in Cardiff in 1943. From 1956 to 1961, he was educate ...

, a new afterword by Maria Fusco and an introduction by the editors, Jay Jeff Jones and Douglas Field, which includes archival images.

Critical response

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' called Nuttall "a powerhouse communicator or overcommunicator with all the sprawling intellectual continuity and splashy effects that is implied", and suggested that the book was primarily aimed at Nuttall's own generation. ''The Guardian'' in 2004 said it "remains a primary source and manifesto for the post-Hiroshima generation".

References

External links

''Bomb Culture'' - book cover

- extracts from a 1984 interview

- a small part of Sixties counter-culture - includes Jeff Nuttall {{UK underground 1968 non-fiction books Underground culture