The secret history of rock music in the American bicentennial.

When it comes to the tensions and contradictions of American culture, it's hard to beat 1976. It was the year of the United States bicentennial, one in which flags, bunting, and other patriotic kitsch were omnipresent, and the nation took stock of a two-hundred-year history culminating in global economic, military, and cultural dominance. At the same time, Americans confronted rampant inflation, the Vietnam War's humiliating and unceremonious end, and disillusionment over everything from the Kennedy Assassination to the Watergate scandal.

One way of navigating this dark landscape was through the occult: hitching a ride on the magic carpet of'60s anti-establishment sentiment, layperson and artist alike investigated the most arcane, esoteric theories of the universe. And nowhere was that influence clearer than in rock and pop music. Whether in Jimmy Page's obsession with Aleister Crowley, Blue Öyster Cult's embrace of The Reaper, Bob Dylan's forays into ersatz Christianity, or Miles Davis's use of hollow-earth and UFO iconography, a preoccupation with secret knowledge and mysterious forces thoroughly shaped their music and public personas. Spirits of '76 offers a spellbinding exploration of the American bicentennial as the culmination of these strange cultural trends, showing how rock music became one way for a nation to come to terms with its uncanny underbelly.