The Big Bang, the Buddha, and the Baby Boom

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Some deep alternative current has begun flowing out of the spiritual adventures and identity struggles of recent generations. Of course, we didn't create the conditions or questions of this new age; we got caught in them. The ground shifted, the old gods departed, the economic and political utopias crumbled, and the traditional answers were washed away. We didn't leave home; home left us.

How did a nice Jewish boy from Nebraska become a Buddhist in California?

Join Wes "Scoop" Nisker as he takes us on a hilarious, wild ride from West to East and back again in his quest for true self and enlightenment. Combining the best elements of memoir and social commentary, Nisker uses his own story to illuminate the Baby Boomers' roots of spiritual hunger in postwar America. His journey begins in middle America (Nebraska to be exact) in the middle of the twentieth century, travels through the heyday of the Beats and the Hippies, the birth of the modern environmental movement, and winds up in the current epicenter of Buddhism in the West—California.

Full of colorful and immediately recognizable figures of art, religion, and popular culture—from Alfred E. Newman to Allen Ginsberg—The Big Bang, the Buddha, and the Baby Boom is a guided tour of both the outer and inner move-ments that have culminated in the growing culture of Western Buddhism—a lasting, vivid picture of how the Baby Boom generation came to be identified with spiritual seeking, how they went about the search, what they have found and created, and what their true legacy is.