Steal This Book

This edition is a 1982 reprint of the original 1971 text, with a 1772 “copyright”. (That’s not a typo – YIPpie at work.) About all Steal this Book is good for these days is nostalgia, although Hoffman’s firebomb designs still are nice simple classics. This is where I first learned to cap a Molotov cocktail, instead of running down the street with a bottle of gasoline poorly plugged with a gas-soaked rag in one hand, and an open flame in the other. Ah, youth.
The youth of today won’t believe that once upon a time you could walk onto an airplane without even a boarding pass, much less a cavity search. And shoplifting didn’t involve electronic countermeasures.
I would recommend against trying most of the money-making scams show more listed here. Even in 1971, many were too well-known to work anymore. I know. I got busted on two occasions back in the day following Abbie’s advice. And I remember going to the little shop in Manhattan that this book said sold foreign coins to be used as slugs. I think it was a sewing notions shop. I remember the sign expressing displeasure, shall we say, with Mr. Hoffman’s misinformation. Memories! show less

Abbie Hoffman and “Steal this Book” was my introduction to the counter culture of the late 60s. I read this (borrowed from a library rather than stealing it) nearly 30 years after it was written (and twenty years prior to this review) and couldn’t help but feel galvanised by Hoffman (although it took me some time to find out who the author was and then how important this Hoffman chap was).

Hoffman recommends a list of sometimes ingenious ways to get stuff for free, ranging from meat from the meat packers area of New York (make the meat hit the ground and then they have to throw it away) to free buffalos. He also reminisces about the time he rained money down on the NY Stock Exchange and how the stick brokers went apeshit. show more Obviously all good fun for the people that followed Hoffman’s lead but stepping back you know that Hoffman was criticised for publicising the free stuff, leading lots of people to try the same, thus annoying the people who were doing it regularly as a way to live, and of course the poor meat packers who were swamped with idiots trying to get them to drop the meat. Still, a great time capsule of western civilisation in the late 1960s. show less

This book hasn't aged well. I think that the author would have been aware that it would suffer this problem. How could a book that sets out to advise its audience as to how to circumvent the 'system', stay relevant? Things change: the electronic telephone exchanges have been replaced by digital equipment; the workplace is now unrecognizably different to that when this was penned.

So, why would one bother to read this tome? There are three reasons; firstly, as an historic document. It is a great insight into the world of the hippie rebel. Then, it tells us more about Abbie Hoffman and that is important if we are to take the meat of his teaching on board. Finally, there are some nuggets of information which is still relevant in the current show more age.

Read it for fun and take the wisdom as a useful extra. show less

I originally read this book in the long ago times, when it was first published. There was a lot of information in it that seemed entertaining, but not actually as useful as it sounded. I recalled the constant suggestions of how to shoplift, and steal, and it bothered me then. It still does. This copy has an interesting foreword by Lisa Fithian, and then an introduction by Al Giordano, who talks about the original naming of the book, and other things, and both of those are worth the price of admission.

It was published so very long ago, and this isn't just a reprint. With the exception of the updates for Fithian and Giordano, it's basically photocopied from the original. It's uneven; there's at least one image of a cartoon where most of show more the words are impossible to read. Then again, I don't know that it matters all that much. It's certainly a trip down memory lane. I lived in those times, and I'm not sure that it reads the same for those to whom Nixon is an historical figure, and the 1968 Democratic convention is a footnote, at best. I remember that night better than I remember breakfast this morning, and the world changed then.

Abbie Hoffman was born out of those times. So was this book. It's a mirror for those days, but the mirror is a distorted one. (It's also terribly dated, but that's to be expected. 1971 was a LONG time ago.) show less

Anyone who lived in the sixties and has not read this book probably voted for Nixon, BOTH TIMES! That in itself is not a crime.

If you are NOT as old as dirt, you still owe it to yourself to take a swim through these pages.

Failing to grasp the dynamic of this era and its implications that are echoed with the current events (drug wars, poverty, land wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) is a modern mind crime. If you are a member of a militia, you may not be interested in the obvious or not so obvious messages of this book. You will probably never grasp the concept of revolution as theater.

First saw this book in High school where it was passed around with a laugh. Found this copy in a thrift store. Obviously dated now, it is fascinating to read about how the counter coulture viewed itself in the heady days of the early 1970s.

As a kid, I thought this was the funniest book title ever. Didn't love the book itself once I read it as an adult, though, probably because it reminds me of my ex-husband.