In September 1957 Viking Press, published On the Road a novel by a littleknown author Jack Kerouac. It was immediately acclaimed as a classic and made Kerouac famous overnight. He and other Beat Generation writers were inspirational in the development of 1960s counterculture, but Kerouac was openly critical of it. believing his work had been misunderstood. This documentary explores his life and complex personality, including his three month admission to a US Navy psychiatric hospital during World War Two to find out why he was such a reluctant icon.

Finding Out More
There are several biographies about Kerouac, some excellent, some less so. I have listed the ones I felt were useful on my Amazon Store Page. https://www.amazon.com/shop/professor...

References
Reynolds, M. (2016). Social madness in beat generation writing. The Expositor: A Journal of Undergraduate Research in the Humanities, 12, 8099.
Wigand, M. E., Rüsch, N., & Becker, T. (2016). Jack Kerouac Revisited:“Madness” in: On the Road: Between Stigma and Glorification. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 204(10), 728735.

Copyright Disclaimer
The primary purpose of this video is educational. I have tried to use material in the public domain or with Creative Commons Nonattribution licences wherever possible. Where attribution is required, I have listed this below. I believe that any copyright material used falls under the remit of Fair Use, but if any content owners would like to dispute this, I will not hesitate to immediately remove that content. It is not my intention to infringe on content ownership in any way. If you happen to find your art or images in the video, please let me know and I will be glad to credit you.

Images
Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
National Archive https://www.archives.gov/publications...
University of North Carolina

Music
All music CC0 from YouTube

Video produced by Graeme Yorston and Tom Yorston.