““Still, it is a stretch to regard the beats as initiating a major cultural trend in the late 1950s, let alone to see them as comprising a "movement" that threatened a larger cultural center in the United States. Estimates of those who actually became beats range from several hundred to a thousand or more, only 150 or so of whom did any writing. They had little if anything in common with many other cultural rebels, such as fans of rock 'n' roll, or with political leftists, at the time.””
