By John Mark Eberhart, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Apr. 10--Assessments of the cultural impact of the arts in the 1960s and 1970s often focus on subversion in rock music (the Stones, the Who, the Sex Pistols) and in film ("Easy Rider,""A Clockwork Orange,""One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest").

By David Kronke Richard Zoglin's new book, "Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America," pretty much confirms Steve Martin's famous declaration: "Comedy is not pretty." Zoglin, a Time magazine entertainment reporter, interviewed the surviving members of the anarchic comedy movement during the Vietnam and Watergate years.