I agree with Publishers Weekly | Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069

Gen X Resonance | Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 | Neil Howe, William Strauss

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	• Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 Neil Howe, William Strauss Harper Perennial, 1992 - 544 pages average customer review:based on 39 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Brilliant!

I've only read the first 100 pages of this book, but I can honestly say that it is one of the single most intelligent books I have ever read. Note: if you're not too keen on research and data, you may not have the patience to get through it. Personally though, I've found it to be a great read.

I agree with Publishers Weekly

The authors go deep, very deep historically, so I don't doubt they did their research. But there's almost too much information in this book. By the time I started to read about the second "cycle" it all sounded like rehashed information from the first "cycle". The authors overtalked every generation to the point that it all became muddy. As Publishers Weekly said "as wholly as a horoscope" for as useful as the information was. I enjoyed the few tidbits of historical information that I could glean, and I was fair in that I read the book straight through, but it could have used some finer editing. Also, they glossed over a very important point to me, a boomer, in that they didn't give enough importance to the threat that nuclear war had on the post-WWII generation. What about the "drop and cover exercises we all practiced in grade school? And later in life, I and my associates lived with the hope that if someone dropped a nuclear bomb, it would land right on top of us so that we wouldn't have to endure the post-nuclear-bomb-world and all it's horrors. That fear clouded and impacted our coming-of-age years a lot. Therefore, I read the book somewhat skeptical of what its message MIGHT have been.

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Gen X Resonance

After reading this book, I am reminded of the Fugees' (or Roberta Flack's, depending on your age and taste) "Killing Me Softly." The authors of Generations appear to be extremely perceptive and insightful, "telling my whole life with his words." And they may be. But in fact, they came to their conclusions based on mounds and mounds of historical and psychographic data.

My sister and I are 9 years apart, and I've often wondered how we turned out so different. I'm a Gen Xer (what Strauss and Howe call a 13er) born in 1980; she's a Millennial born in 1989. There was a huge sea change in popular psychology, parenting, and policy in between those years. When the authors describe each of our generations, I see ourselves (and our parents).

I have to say that I like this book mostly because it resonates personally with me. There are some parts that are a bit tedious (my advice? Skip or skim them). But on the whole it is well written and well researched. The first chapters on how Strauss and Howe delineate between generations is very interesting.

If you're an armchair sociologist like me, read this book.

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Great for a start in the theory, but need improvement to become more factual

Strauss and Howe have started a great work. For this they deserve 3 stars, but that is as far as it goes. There needs to be two more generations of writers to improve on this before it can be fully trustworthy. The point-of-view of the writers is of an idealistic generation. Even the whole concept of recessive generations being inferior is questionable. Their lack of physiological testing and relying on macro data such as traits of a person in a generation and relying on historical assessments to their generations point-of-view shows bias. My personal beef is with reactive generations. They could not even complement most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence without a very negative "but...". Word is, they are pushing their hope for utopia by promoting what they dub as "The Next Greatest Generation" without hesitation in obvious bias from a generation that is like the Pit of Despair. Harvard is up to something that will likely even the playing field to add more perspectives and actual science to improve on it. 3 starts for "first" inventing the wheel. No stars for inventing the wheel in their own image.

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History or Horoscopes?

While reading this book, I kept feeling like I was reading astrology. Like horoscopes, the authors of this book describe different generations in ways that are vague and easily applied (and nearly impossible to verify empirically). There did seem to be patterns, but I'm not completely convinced. I think the most important thing that can be taken away from this book is that of context - social events are experienced differently depending on where one is in his/her life stage. This is an important point - just like social events are experienced differently depending on race, class, and gender. However, the patterns the authors see, as well as the predictions they make, are somewhat flimsy. This is just one more lens by which to analyze history, along with race, class, gender, etc.

Many of the predictions the authors make have not come true, though they do propose that they are explaining what should happen in the future so that the next social crisis is dealt with successfully, rather than what will, without a doubt, happen. Unfortunately, if what these authors say is true, the future does not bode well for us. According to the authors, the Silent generation is supposed to begin to give up some entitlements installed by the GI generation. The recent uprising of seniors against government meddling with THEIR MEDICARE shows that this has not happened. I wonder if the boomers will continue this trend when they age. Also, they say that the Millennial generation will succeed in math and science and surpass Asian countries in academic accomplishments. As the test scores of the past 10 years have shown, these improvements have not happened, and the prediction that this new generation will be the next great civic one looks unlikely.

As a Gen Xer (I can't stomach their "13er" name), I think their description of my generation and how society views us is pretty accurate. But, sometimes when I read a description of my astrological sign, I feel like I'm being completely understood. For that reason, I think this book should be looked upon very skeptically.

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Hailed by national leaders as politically diverse as former Vice President Al Gore and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Generations has been heralded by reviewers as a brilliant, if somewhat unsettling, reassessment of where America is heading.

William Strauss and Neil Howe posit the history of America as a succession of generational biographies, beginning in 1584 and encompassing every-one through the children of today. Their bold theory is that each generation belongs to one of four types, and that these types repeat sequentially in a fixed pattern. The vision of Generations allows us to plot a recurring cycle in American history -- a cycle of spiritual awakenings and secular crises -- from the founding colonists through the present day and well into this millenium.

Generations is at once a refreshing historical narrative and a thrilling intuitive leap that reorders not only our history books but also our expectations for the twenty-first century.

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