From New York to San Francisco, Texas, Mexico, and beyond, the fascinating group of maverick poets and writers known as the Beats lived a life of wild experimentation, rebelling against the buttoned-up conformity of the 1950s. With text accompanied by more than one hundred photographs, The Birth of the Beat Generation brings their rebellion into sharp focus, tracing the connections between such figures as William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and Herbert Huncke to reveal the legend that would make them into cultural icons.