{"product_id":"woodstock-isbn-9781468316377","title":"Woodstock","description":"\u003cdiv\u003eFew small towns in America have as colorful  a history as that of Woodstock in Ulster  County, New York. Set in a countryside of  exceptional natural beauty, Woodstock from  the first embodied the most enduring characteristics  of the Catskills and the Hudson Valley.  From the early days of Indians, trappers, farmers,  and land barons, to the present day of rock  musicians, craftspeople, and refugees from the  urban scene, Alf Evers’s extraordinary history  tells the tale of a very special American place.Long before the Woodstock Festival put the  name of Woodstock Village on the map and  drew young people from all over the world,  Woodstock had an earlier incarnation in which  free-thinking ideas held sway. In 1902, inspired  by the social philosophy of John Ruskin and  William Morris, three men—Hervey White,  Ralph Whitehead, and Bolton Coit Brown—  brought their Utopian vision to the Catskills,  looking for a place to settle. With a number of  requirements in mind, they came upon this small  hamlet set in the mountains on a tract of land  given to Robert Livingston. They decided unanimously  that it was here that “man’s mightiest  creative energies might be released,” and they  would feel free to pursue their talents while living  in a self-sufficient community. The “earthly paradise”  they discovered was, of course, the cheerful,  industrious, and well-kept town of Woodstock,  and in it they built their historic new society.From the 1920s on, the town was known as a  familiar art and cultural center, with two competing  communities—Byrdcliffe and Maverick—working to develop a style of life that would  integrate arts and crafts with advanced social  ideas. Following these early American bohemians  came the Yippies and Beat artists of the  Fifties and the “Woodstock Generation” of the  Sixties. The conflict between the more traditional  town, the conservative agricultural community,  and the exiles from Greenwich Village, the artisans  of the craft colony, waxed and waned with each  new generation, each side vigorously defending  a way of life and inevitably benefitting from the  continuing existence of the other.Woodstock: History of an American Town is the  result of fifteen years of research by the distinguished  local historian Alf Evers. His previous  work, The Catskills, prepared the groundwork for  the present and more detailed study of a village  which became one of the most famous towns in  America. It is, in many ways, the story of the  birth, growth, and coming of age of the American  way in its evocation of the early pioneer values  of individualism and self-sufficiency with those  of the community and commonweal. It is a captivating  tale.\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Harry N. Abrams","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44894856052965,"sku":"NP9781468316377","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/woodstock-isbn-9781468316377","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}