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| Authors: Neil Howe, William Strauss
Creator: R.j. Matson
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy Used: $4.94
You Save: $12.01 (71%)
New (28) Used (53) Collectible (1) from $4.94
Avg. Customer Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 14847
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 432
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 7.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0375707190
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.2350973
EAN: 9780375707193
ASIN: 0375707190
Publication Date: September 5, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Good reading copy..has remainder mark..light wear..Immediate Ship!!
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| Customer Reviews:
 generational understanding August 24, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book along with the book "Generations" and many others written by Neil Howe and William Strauss are some of my favorites. They have changed the way I look at the world. If you want to understand your parents world, or grandparents or children's frame of reference, these books are outstanding. My kids are both Millennials and this author's description fits them totally.
Interesting, but very much a product of today's culture March 4, 2007
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
I've always been fascinated by social history, and generally enjoy reading about societal trends, so I found this book to be interesting on the surface. The book is entertaining (in small doses!), but there are some deeper problems, both in its assumptions and conclusions.
First, to really buy into what this book claims, one must in some sense buy into the authors' ideas about generations. To be sure, social phenomena are not linear, but it is a stretch to assume that they are cyclical in the sense of "great generations". Many of the events that influence different "generations", actually are multi-generational, encompassing time scales of a century or more.
Despite the idea that each generation makes its own future, or has it made for them largely by their parents or their place in a historical cycle, much of what takes place is on a much larger and longer scale and there is no evidence that this is really cyclical in any sense. This book has little to say about these, instead dwelling on grandparents, parents and children and the idea of cyclical generations.
The other aspect of this book that I find troubling is the combination of facts,trends, and broad assumptions that are not really well verified being taken as some sort rigorous analysis. It is more theme oriented journalism with lots of citations, interviews and "factoids". It as close to a feature in a Sunday magazine as to any real in depth analysis.
Prospective readers should also be aware of the background of these authors. Although they are referred to in various reviews as "historians", their backgrounds are closer to what might be termed "Republican policy wonks", who now run a consulting business based on identifying and advising on generational trends.
Why does this matter? First off most of the interviews were conducted in Fairfax County, VA. By no strech of the imagination is this representative of the Earth's or even the USA's youth population. Second, if one has read their other books or heard them speak, one becomes aware of their antagonism to cultural trends that might not fit the picture of "hope" painted in this book. Finally, the whole concept of "generations" such as "Xers and Boomers" is largely a marketing and pop culture phenomenon that frequently "fits" the way a horroscope does. Make a few suggestions, present some "proof" and voila, an instant read on history and the future.
America's obsession with pop culture, its children, the future and other themes of books such as these make for ocassional interesting reading, if one takes them with a large grain of salt. They trade largely in broad pictures that don't always hold up to closer scrutiny. They frequently ignore more sophisticated analysis and alternative explanations. To elevate them to something more is a serious mistake.
They are as much a product of the current culture as a study of it. As with much pop culture, they invent and reinvent stereotypes that take on mythical stature. This book is to be taken with a grain of salt.
Better services than I expected February 22, 2007
0 out of 7 found this review helpful
Quality as told in the initial description.
Amazon (the seller) sent me this book two weeks earlier than the date they should send it.
So, only reasons to be happy about.
Excellent book February 16, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Interesting and cleverly presented observations and research regarding the Gen Y or Millenial generation.
Past is prologue: Prescience on parade December 8, 2006
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Strauss and Howe continue to amaze. I've been reading their books for ten years now, and their 1990 book, presumably written in the late 1980s, outlined Millenial's generational type at that early date. Item after item that they associate with Millenial's is being born out, drop in drug use, rise in sexual abstinence, etc. One of the most striking reversals from my adolescence in the late 1960s, is how close most of these kids re to their parents, consider them their best friends.
I was as wayward as they come as a boomer teenage, gave my parents holy hell, and not atypical I might add - and have alway feared that I when I had my kids, I would get justice. Well I'm getting mercy instead - my kids and their friends are absolute angels compared to my childhood and friends my age. This is not just my experience, but surveys bear out millenial attributes all the time.
Look at the attitude of these soldiers in Iraq - surveys and anecdotal evidence show that they have a very civic spirit in fighting the good fight, many re-enlist, and the army has been able to keep the numbers up without a draft. Compare that to the attitude of my generation in Vietnam. You may argue that Vietnam was a totally different context, but I think there is plenty of fodder for young people in their early twentys today to cop a serious attitude about the Iraq war, which they have not done.
It's pretty annoying to read these reviewers who criticize the authors for a "dated book", when they read the book five years after it was published -hello? Other people just can't buy the hope implied with millenial descriptions because they've been dieting for decades on the "society is going to hell in a handbasket" stuff and they just can't seem to turn that off. Others try to refute the author's thesis by citing a few people they know who don't fit the mold - reminds me of the people who know how the country will vote in a presidential election, based on an informal survey of their friends.
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