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 enlarge | Authors: Neil Howe, William Strauss
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  32 reviews
Sales Rank: 14605
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0688119123
Dewey Decimal Number: 973
EAN: 9780688119126
ASIN: 0688119123
Publication Date: September 30, 1992
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| Customer Reviews:
 This analytical historical model holds up well 16 years later. September 18, 2007
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
I think Strauss and Howe are on to something. Remember we are in the realm of social sciences, and no analytical model is ever 100% correct; if you reach 60% that's good. I think Howe and Strauss cleared this hurdle by a wide margin. I support my opinion on the following considerations.
First, based on all the different generations I have met so far the Strauss and Howe model fits well. The G.I., Boomers, Thirteenth (Generation X), and Millennials (Generation Y) are well captured. The principal callings of various generations as described on page 367 and principal endowment activities on page 371 seem accurate.
Second, this book was first published 16 years ago. And, the analysis has held up well with the passage of time. Part III of the book describes the future (post 1991). You obviously can pick errors. But, overall they got it right. Some of their calls are prescient. Such as: "... by the year 2000, midlife women will surge into boardrooms, media anchor booths, university presidencies, and Congress-and will begin making plausible runs for the White House." And, "... the Boom may split along geographical lines-for example, with urban, bicoastal New Agers squaring off against heartland evangelicals." Also, "... to elder Boomers, `retirement' will... be of little consequence. The very concept of a fixed retirement age will blur, late-in-life career changes will be encouraged." And, "Great peril might arise if Boomers find themselves confronting religious fundamentalists whose inner zeal matches their own... Make no mistake: faced with crisis, this generation [Boomer] of onetime draft resisters will not hesitate, as elder warrior-priests, to conscript young soldiers to fight and die for righteous purpose... As Boomers begin endorsing global crusades, the 13ers [Gen X] will turn toward isolationism." Remember all these statements were written in 1991. They demonstrate foresight that is way beyond luck.
Third, their generational cycle model has several well established precedents ranging from Homer to contemporary social scientists including one nearly identical one by Samuel Huntington, my favorite political scientist, who wrote the equally seminal The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.
I liked this book for many other reasons too. Appendix A that describes in much detail their whole theory of generational-historical cycle is fascinating. Additionally, as a byproduct I have learned a whole lot about American history. Their model does a good job of explaining Americans ability for self-renewal that is way more pronounced than for Europeans and Asians. The authors state this is because other cultures are much more constrained by the weight of tradition. Having lived in both Europe and the U.S., I do agree.
If you enjoy this book, I also recommend Carroll Quigley Evolution of Civilizations. This author shows that entire civilizations follow a defined life cycle.
Is this the beginning of Asimov's "psychohistory" from his Foundation series? February 1, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Reading this book in 2007, the accuracy of the predictions covering the past decade and a half, since it was written, is amazing and scary. Asimov's "psychohistory" came to mind, but that reference is a mere tangent to the importance of this book and theory. Strauss and Howe have organized human history into a recurring predictable cycle. The way I read it, they predict the next rendezvous with destiny to be in about fifteen years, give or take a few years. That means the current and next president should be well out of power. Thank God, because in their hands will be the fortune of an entire generational history. Be forewarned, reading this book may completely reorganize your previous concepts of history. What will be the impact of this knowlege on their theory itself and history? Time will tell.
Gets better with age... November 10, 2006
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This was a readable, insightful book when it was published apx 15 years ago, and it has stood up remarkably well since. So long as you don't read it in a deterministic manner, it is filled with perspectives which will challenge everyone from demographers to political scientists and operatives, as well as marketers.
Decoding History August 11, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
As I was reading "Generations" I had to remind myself it was written fifteen years ago. The paradigm shift it has facilitated has made me feel connected to over four hundred years of American history. I'm inspired to read other books in the series and have just ordered Millenials Rising.
A seminal work in understanding generational behavior, and a pleasant read January 2, 2006
59 out of 59 found this review helpful
Strauss and Howe have written several books since this one, expanding upon their general historical thesis. But this one is the seminal book, the important one, and the one on which the others are based.
The book basically is a theory of American history that is premised on generational behavior. The authors have been quite successful in explaining and in some instances predicting the cycles of events, values and opinions of American society. It's very much worth reading simply because the reader is likely to experience an enhanced understanding of what is happening around him/her in the body politic.
The basic insight in this book is a simple one: Instead of trying to build a theory of American history (as did Arthur Schlesinger) that is based on unexplained "cycles" and "swings" from liberal to conservative and back again, why not simply look at how American generations behave as they age? When you do that, as Strauss and Howe have found, you find that American generations behave with a certain consistency throughout their lives. If their formative experiences push them in a certain direction while young, they'll continue to act in that way as they get older. That is, if you understand that history is really the process of different generations moving through time, then the swings of American history no longer look so mysterious; they appear as predictable manifestations of the fact that different generations with different life experiences have risen to the foreground.
Of course, you don't want to take all of this too sweepingly, or else it starts to seem like astrology or historical biorhythms. Generations are diverse groups, and no two people within a generation are exactly alike. But there are clear trends of generational behavior, which Strauss/Howe substantiate quite well.
Their basic model is that there are four basic generational types, which tend to occur in this order: Idealist, reactive, civic, and adaptive.
The GI generation (born 1902-1924) that fought WWII is a classic example of a "civic" generation. Consider their life experiences; when they came of age, they were asked en masse to participate in the greatest government-directed effort imaginable, fighting and winning WWII. Then when they got done with that, many of them went to school on the GI bill. When they were young, government spending and focus was oriented on youth. When they aged, government spending and focus shifted along with them, to where it is now focused on their elderly group, through Social Security, Medicare, and the other elderly programs that dominate the federal budget. It was natural that this generation would come to think of government's priorities being oriented in their direction as the natural order of things. They are civic-minded and they tend to have a more benign attitude towards government than do other generations. Accordingly, they are generally suspicious of change in the government approaches they know (for example, strongly against Social Security personal accounts, as opposed to a government-defined benefit.) Also, as a civic generation, they didn't focus their energies on redefining the values and purpose of America, they had a job to do (win the big war), and they did it.
Contrast that with an "idealist" generation, the "boomer" generation. Many in this generation grew up with an assumption of unlimited economic opportunity and security. They therefore turned their attention to spiritual matters, questioning and often rebelling against the values of the GI generation as well as its follow-up generation, the Silent generation. It was this "idealist" element of the boomers that unleashed the social revolutions of the late 1960s. This streak of strong opinions is visible in the boomers to this day; many of the political leaders who are regarded on both sides as being among the most shrill and uncompromising are from the boomer generation. This was also true when they were youth in the late 1960s; not only the activists on the radical left, but also those who retreated into a dyed-in-the-wool conservatism. The Silent generation prior to them didn't generally split into such poles.
The contrast between the "Silent" generation and the boomers is instructive. The "Silents" followed on the GI generation, looked up to them, generally shared their values, and sought to expand and liberalize them somewhat incrementally. The "silents" worked within the system: the 1950s, for example, saw civil rights expanding, Brown vs the Board of Education, etc. They sought to expand the blessings of liberty but at the same time were generally trustful of the leadership of previous generations. Not so the boomers; as the boomers came of age, they loudly, and often with great hostility, attacked the core value systems of the generations before them as being inadequate to progress, and sought to make a new, purer system of values. The silents wouldn't have been nearly so bold.
You can see the results in our national politics. The GI generation dominated the presidency for some time (Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder) and then handed the baton off to the Boomers (Clinton, Bush the Younger.) The Silent generation was simply skipped over.
The so-called "Generation X" (1961-81 birth years in this book) is a classic example of a "reactive" generation. These generations usually followed idealist generations, and didn't have the economic optimism of their predecessors, and thus didn't feel the same security to reimagine the spiritual basis of their nation. These generations often receive great criticism from the generation before them for failing to uphold their ideals. When the Strauss/Howe book came out, this was happening to Gen X much more than is the case now; the boomers, anxious to preserve their spiritual vision, often expressed concern and even disgust about the cynical, world-weary attitudes of the generation that followed them. But the Gen xers had had a different experience; they were not taught, as were the boomers, that life was always going to be sunny for them economicallly. The boomers were blocking the job pipeline as these Gen Xers entered the workforce for the first time. And their life experience with government is exactly the opposite of the GI generation;at every stage of the Gen Xers maturation, government's resources have been directed to benefit someone else. Whereas the GIs will get far more out of Social Security than they ever put in, Gen X will put far more in than they will ever get out; small wonder that Gen X generally wants to be given personal accounts instead of sticking with the old system.
Only over time have the Gen Xers won the respect of previous generations, just as did previous "reactive" generations of their type. A great analogy are the generations that came of age before the American Civil War. The analogues to the boomers then were the "transcendental" generation: the Thoreaus and the Lincolns and the Garrisons -- many of the abolitionists and civil disobedients who found the value system of their nation to be lacking. They unleashed a social revolution that exploded in the Civil War. Meanwhile, the generation behind them, the Ulysses Grants of the world, were thought to be mundane, unimaginative, unimpressive. But it was the Grant generation that fought and won the Civil War, relying on the resourcefulness that a tougher life had required them to learn. The Gen Xers are showing similar resilience now.
As said, you can't take any of this too exactly; otherwise it starts to seem like the Chinese zodiac; it's not the case that everyone born in the Year of the Bunny is lucky and affectionate. But it is still the case that formative experiences are often a key to understanding generational behavior. Strauss and Howe provide a very useful way to think about history, and an entertaining book to boot.
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