Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Stuff 1968! - What About 1962?

A history of Amsterdam's "Provo" movement has been sorely lacking for many years so author Richard Kempton and publisher Autonomedia are to be congratulated on the recent publication of Provo: Amsterdam's Anarchist Revolt.
From the publisher's blurb:

"Provo staged political and cultural interventions into the symbolic and everyday spaces of Holland from 1962–1967. In this first book-length English-language study of their history, Richard Kempton narrates the rise and fall of Provo from early Dutch “happenings” staged in 1962 to the “Death of Provo” in 1967. He chronicles Robert Jasper Grootveld’s anarchist anti-cancer campaign, the riots against Princess Beatrix’s marriage to an ex-Nazi, and the famous White Bicycle program. He also comments on parallel contemporary and near-contemporary movements (including Dada and Situationism), Amsterdam’s previous anarchist traditions, the spread of Provo through Holland and the development of the Kabouter party, and ends by offering an existentialist critique of Provo and other anarchist movements of the 1960s."