Product Description

A driving force behind the social revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, Hoffman inspired a generation to challenge the status quo. Meant as a practical guide for the aspiring hippie, Steal This Book captures Hoffman’s puckish tone and became a cult classic with over 200,000 copies sold. Outrageously illustrated by R. Crumb, it nevertheless conveys a serious message to all would-be revolutionaries: You don’t have to take it anymore. "All Power to the Imagination was his credo. Abbie was the best." — Studs Terkel

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #140119 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 308 pages

Review
Excerpt: Steal This Book is, in a way, a manual of survival in the prison that is Amerika. It preaches jailbreak. It shows you where exactly how to place the dynamite that will destroy the walls. The first section--SURVIVE!--lays out a potential action program for our new Nation. The chapter headings spell out the demands for a free society. A community where the technology produces goods and services for whoever needs them, come who may. It calls on the Robin Hoods of Santa Barbara Forest to steal from the robber barons who own the castles of capitalism. It implies that the reader already is ideologically set, in that he understands corporate feudalism as the only robbery worthy of being called crime, for it is committed against the people as a whole. Whether the ways it describes to rip-off shit are legal or illegal is irrelevant. The dictionary of law is written by the bosses of order. Our moral dictionary says no heisting from each other. To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.

Customer Reviews

very good book
this book is a very good book to read and i enjoyed it from start to end. i mainly used it for the little handbook on making explosives which do work. The only thing i don't like is that some of the tricks and ways of getting money there are in the book are written to be used in the 70s and not in modern times. it is still a good book and every anarchist should have this one in their library

Nastalgia and little else
I checked this book out of the library instead of stealing it. Because of the provacative title, it was kept behind the library front desk!


I read the book for laughs then because in the late 70's, the book already was tremendously out of date. I does give you a good idea what the Yippies (not the hippies, they were non-violent)were about.

As far as Hoffman's preaching of violence against the system, well I side with John Lennon's sentiment, "You can count me out".

Nice Little Book
Steal This Book is a nice, interesting book to read. There are some interesting items in the book that if followed today, would easily land you in jail. Whether or not the author got away with the majority of these items to steal is questionable. The book was written decades ago and some of the items mentioned will not mean anything to todays generations. But for those of us who came of age in the 1960's, it will bring a laugh or two and good memories. I would not spend the money on a new or a hard copy, but if you come across it in paperback and used, go for it.