What were the historical precedents of the political ideas advanced by Students for a Democratic Society, the largest student group in American history? Where does the hippie counterculture -- that strange melange of sex, drugs, rock and roll and "do your own thing" individualism -- fit into the broad sweep of American culture and history? A Fiction of the Past not only sutures the youth culture to American history, but shows how its most radical ideas and values were deeply etched in the American grain.