The seminar explores the story of the Beatles from a global perspective, at the intersection between the history of music, culture, and society in the long Sixties. The first contact traces the music and cultural roots of the band and charts its early successes by following its absorption and creative elaboration of American rock and pop music between Liverpool and Hamburg, and its early triumphal landing on the American shores. The second lecture will focus on the relations between the band and its fans, sketching out the contours of Beatlemania in such different national settings as the UK, the U.S., Italy, Japan, and the USSR. Third, we will place the revolution in writing and recording brought about at Abbey Road against the larger backdrop of the contemporary transformations in the transnational recording industry. Lastly, we will assess the Beatles’ role and impact as a music phenomenon, a transmedial megacommodity, a countercultural icon, and a site for international public discussion in the age of global social upheaval.