Description: As cultural revolutionary, media celebrity, Yippie, lost soul, and tragic suicide, Abbie Hoffman embodied the contradictions of his era. In this riveting new biography, Jonah Raskin draws on his own twenty-year relationship with Hoffman; hundreds of interviews with friends, family members, and former comrades; and careful scrutiny of FBI files, court records, and public documents. For the Hell of It is a must-read not only for those interested in this ultimate iconoclast, but also for all who seek a fuller understanding of Abbie Hoffman's America.

"As much a corrective to a New Left history of the time as a biography of Abbie Hoffman, the wildest of the wildmen.... Raskin's book is arranged like a series of filmed calendar pages; behind the pages stand descriptions as vivid as movies of the formative influences moving with lightning speed across those few amazing years while Abbie, and the rhetoric inside him, grew apace". -- Vivian Gornick, The Nation

"Hoffman remains one of the most vivid figures in an era that specialized in them.... It would be very hard to read his life's story and not be affected by it". -- Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post

"(A) thicket of information about Hoffman's life and milieu.... Raskin provides not just a finely detailed story about an engaging, if flawed character but the valuable materials for larger lessons". -- Jonathan Rieder, New York Times Book Review

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