Christopher Hitchens reviewed three books on hippies in this past Sunday NYTimes Book Review. From what I can see, these books had little or nothing to do with hippies.
I was in the middle of the middle of the hippy scene. There are two clues as to whether a person is knowledgeable about the hippy era.
(1) Do they mention both Salli Rasberry and Stewart Brand? These were the two people closest to being ostensible leaders of the hippie world. Every hippie knew both of them or knew a great deal about both of them. Rasberry was the leader of hippie style and explored every avenue leading from “live in the moment for joy.” 
She explored, sex, food, music, openness, child rearing and daily life. Rasberry created the hippie style.
Stewart was the leader of the “we are as gods, we can do anything.” Both the Rasberry and the Stewart parts of the hippie movement are with us today.
(2) Do they conflate hippies with the free speech movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement or the Black Panthers? If they do, they are wrong. These three political hate groups (now that we’ve seen political hate in the open form of hate Bush, we can historically go back and use the term hate groups to apply to earlier movements) had nothing to do with hippies.
I personally knew Mario Savio well, I still know David Harris and I was a friend of Huey Newton. These three hate groups probably harmed the hippie movement because the hippies tried to love the hate groups by coming to their parades and events naked, dancing and singing.
Turns out, hippie love had no impact on hate. The lovers just finally realized how wrong they were and moved to the country.