Social and Political Impacts

After the Second World War and into the Cold War, a group of bohemians emerged. They called themselves the Beats. It was in their purpose to provide America with a new way of looking at things. They did this not by violent acts against the government but by writing and acting out against the conformities that were being established. The literature of the Beats impacted both political and cultural aspects of America.

The term beat was first used by Jack Kerouac and John Clellon Holmes in 1948. Beat has no definite meaning but was "interpreted in various circles to mean emptied out, exhausted, and at the same time wide-open and receptive to vision" (Ginsberg qtd. in Waldman xiv). Most Beats grew up during the Depression, went to college, served in World War II, and returned home to realize nothing had changed. "Conformity was...