The Beatles arrived in the United States on February 7, 1964, and immediately became a constant, compelling presence in fans’ lives. With a nonstop deluge of sounds, words, images, and ideas, the Fab Four seduced young Americans through six critical years of child and adolescent development, providing an alternative curriculum, more fun and engaging than what kids were learning in school. As a result, first generation fans have a relationship with the Beatles that is unique in human history?a powerful attachment much more profound and historically significant that mere nostalgia.
Part generational memoir and part cultural history of the sixties, Beatleness allows the reader to experience?again or for the first time?what it was like to grow up with the Beatles and shows the impact of "beatleness" as an ever-evolving stimulant in young lives. Based on hundreds of hours of in-depth fan interviews, the book combines original analysis of the Beatles phenomenon with scores of fan vignettes and photographs. Of interest to every fan generation, second and third as well as first, it offers a new understanding of the Beatles' place in American history: how they changed everything, and why they still mean so much to so many.
