Book Review: Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism

In its early years, Rolling Stone stood out on the magazine rack: an iconoclastic bimonthly aimed at young Americans, dedicated to music, culture, and politics. Magazine cofounder Jann Wenner's vision of a magazine that blended politics with sophisticated coverage of rock music and related social and cultural trends was groundbreaking and a surprising commercial success, turning the brash young publisher into the era's quintessential "hip capitalist."

This is a history of Rolling Stone's heyday, from its founding in 1967 to its twentieth anniversary, examining its coverage of notable social, cultural, and political developments and the contributions of its distinguished and often brilliant writers—from Greil Marcus and Hunter S. Thompson to William Greider and P. J. O'Rourke. It also reveals how, in response to shifts in its audience, the magazine industry, and the broader culture, Rolling Stone gradually changed, becoming more successful but also less innovative and influential. In the magazine's prime, however, Wenner and company showed how a thoughtful, irreverent magazine could attract advertisers as well as readers and spread sixties-inspired values into the mainstream.

Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism by Charles L. Ponce de Leon will be published April 21, 2026. University of North Carolina Press provided an early galley for review.

Growing up, I picked up the magazine periodically when certain artists appeared on the covers. In the 2000's, I picked up the DVD-ROM collection from Bondi Digital Publishing that contained the first forty years of the publication. So, I was curious to see what this author had to say about the first two decades of the magazine.

This is a very scholarly discussion, expertly researched and very formally presented (i.e. it comes across very factual without injecting too much of the author's unique voice/style in the prose). I expect this was purposeful, especially coming from a university press imprint. The author frames what was going on with the magazine and its staff as the events of the world unfolded around them, showing how each influenced the other.

If you are a fan of Rolling Stone, there is a lot to digest here. As someone whose music tastes were formed in the 70's and 80's, there was a lot that I found personally interesting.