Product Description

The story of Emmett Grogan, the leader of the San Francisco anarchist collective "The Diggers" in the 60s. It traces his journey from the mean streets of Brooklyn to the summer of love heyday in Haight-Ashbury, where he was constantly organising, protesting and partying.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #373804 in Books
• Published on: 1999-06-15
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Abbie Hoffman
"Emmett Grogan was the hippie warrior par excellence. He was also a junkie, a maniac, a gifted actor, a rebel hero... and above all a pain in the ass to all his friends. Ringolevio is half-brilliant."

Jerry Garcia
"Emmett Grogan was a wonderful storyteller, and Ringolevio is a great book."

From the Back Cover
Ringolevio is the extraordinary story of Sixties urban guerilla, Emmett Grogan. From the mean streets of Brooklyn to the Haight-Ashbury summer-of-love heyday, he and the Diggers were constantly organising, protesting and partying, almost always at odds with the forces of the law.

Blurring the ground between social history and romantic myth-making, Emmett Grogan takes the reader on an exhilarating adventure where the fight for liberty and personal freedom is always at the centre of his crazy escapades. Ringolevio is manifesto, memoir and high adventure all rolled into one.

Customer Reviews

Flower Children My ************ Ass!
Better than "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," better than Kesey, Emmett Grogan's nigh-on unbelievable but true account of his rise from the streets of Brooklyn through heroin, high-class jewel thievery, the mafia, the I.R.A, and finally the Haight-Ashbury underground during the mid and late sixties, where he was a seminal (but invisible) figure in the anonymous bunch of anarchist activists "THE DIGGERS". The kind of book that makes you want to yell "I'm Mad as Hell, and I'm not gonna take this any more!". Grogan is hot on practicality and freedom, and not on Leary-esque mumbo-jumbo, which he reveals as a downright capitalist con. ITS FREE BECAUSE ITS YOURS ...

A classic book in a number of area's
When my father gave me a copy of Ringolevio it scared me that I was reading the same books as my old man, I was even more scared when I finished the book- how had I failed to notice my Dad's good taste and what exactly had he got up to in his past. Ringolevio both inspires and enthrals its reader from beginning to end constantly changing theme's and locations and every new chapter of our hero's life is as entertaining as the next. The only reason I couldn't give a full 5 stars is I wouldn't be surprised if the whole lot of this remarkable life story was fiction from beginning to end. But what do I care?

A corking book.
You could spout theory on this book for ages. Yes, there's some very interesting notions of social history, myth-making and pro-active anti-capitalism mixed here. But that's not really the point. This is an astonishing feat of story-telling. Yes, you get a great deal to think about from the book, but the stories are fantastic. More than anything, you'll enjoy just tagging along with Mr Grogan on his very bizarre journey...