The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy

This book was on my desk for a few days before I dug in. The title had annoyed me a bit. Did the Baby Boomer legacy really need defending? I lived through all of it, was a part of it. Absolutely astounding accomplishments over the last forty years. Sure, I've heard the boomer-bashers, but does anybody take them seriously? They're clueless. Someone like Joe Queenan can be very funny, I've laughed out loud at some of his comments - but basically his whole shtick is to shock - and he's most well-known as one of Howard Stern's second (or third, or forth) bananas. You don't take someone like Queenan (or most conservative and all neocon boomer-bashers) seriously. The book was still on my desk. I'd glance at it three or four times a day. 'Will this fellow talk about this and this and this? I bet he won't mention this and this and this. And I'm sure he won't talk about this or this or this, because those things aren't on the radar anymore. And I really want to know why this book even had to be written.' I dig in. Professor Steinhorn is so far ahead of me. He discusses everything - including scores of topics and accomplishments that never occurred to me - even as I lived through them in the 60s, 70s, 80s. What a great read. Why did he feel the need to write this book? It's answered on the first page. Obviously, I agree with most of the other readers posting here (and all the good reviews are taken) - so I'll simply give you some gut reactions: Every chapter was a catalyst. I lived my life over and over again -- growing up in the 50s and 60s, politics, culture, social interactions, workplace issues, music, television, religion, women's rights - all dissected and discussed - and brought back all sorts of memories. The racism ones (I haven't thought of these incidents in thirty or more years): When I was eight or nine, we were selling our house in White Plains, New York. A potential buyer came over, and my father called me downstairs and asked, "How many Negro boys and girls are in your class?" Well, I'd never considered such a question, had to think about it. I figured that almost half were, so I said something like "Probably twelve." No sale there! It was my first real experience with racism. My father was upset, but wasn't mad at me. However, he said, "The next time someone comes over and I ask you that question, say 'two.'" Gee, now it was explained to me that Negroes were bad, and lying was good. My father wasn't some ignorant doofus, by the way. He grew up in the Midwest, and had a very, very good white collar job in the citadel of intellectual and cultural enlightenment: New York City. Summer, 1965: Our family took a vacation to California, and I was on a flight with my father. The Watts Riots were happening, and if you know the flight path to LAX, planes fly right over South L.A. There was an announcement about it by the pilot (although everybody knew about it) - and there was a hush inside the plane as everyb

Steinhorn has important things to say about how America has changed and who changed it. Tom Brokaw who coined the "greatest generation", is not a boomer. He is a pre-boomer, and upon graduating from college, the world was his oyster in the way it never was for any boomer, despite boomer mythology. Brokaw is the archetypical beneficiary of the "greatest generation" world view. His book fed the media's simplistic line about boomers and this line has never been challenged. Steinhorn speculates that WWII, the cornerstone of the adulation of the greatest generation, would have been equally well fought by the boomers. He cites evidence of their bravery in a war that had little meaning, and the bravery it took to oppose it. Many of the greatest generation remember(ed) grandparents who accepted slavery and the non-sufferage of women (even "Wilsonian Democracy" was never meant to include women) and the parents of those grandparents knew those who accepted Indian removal. Social progress was made because this generation did break from these things. It may be the trauma of the depression and the war, but they did not as a group rise to the occasion in the 60's & 70's. Their predominant view was "we had our war, this one is yours". They defeated the Equal Rights Amemdment. Many sold their homes at the first sign of an integrated neighborhood. Steinhorn presents figures showing that the generation's survivors do not relent. They continue to defend segregated neighborhoods and condemn gays and working mothers and more. As Steinhorn says, this revolution was not the stuff of headlines. If cultural revolution didn't have such a negative pall, we might be able to apply it, because that is what it was. It was mircro and local. In schools it took the form of challenging dress codes, band music and why girls couldn't play soccer. In families it took the form of choosing friends, hairstyles, privacy and dating. Slowly, slowly more freedom of choice, freedom of being the self set in. While there may be some nostalgia associated with the times, anyone who grew up in the 50s would never go back to the those Leave to Beaver days. I believe there is an evolution of consciousness that comes with freedom, education and security. Boomer-like consciousness may have sprouted in America with the 1920's affluence, but the depression and the war held it back. I believe Tienneman Square happened because Chinese youth had enough education, affluence and freedom to question the "establishment". I believe that in the Middle East nothing will change until a boomer-like generation challenges their elders at the political level to do the suicide bombing and at the family level ask: Why can't I date? Why can't my hair feel the sunshine? Why do I have to avenge the death of so and so who died at the hand of so and so 600 years ago?

This is really a fascinating and stimulating book that not only challenges conventional wisdom on boomers but also offers an important perspective on our society and political culture. It'll no doubt anger the self-rightous boomer bashers, and it will certainly raise the blood pressure of social conservatives who wish a return to the social order of the Fifties. But for all the rest of us, this book speaks to our lives and experiences, and it does so eloquently and powerfully. Steinhorn's essential point is that we're a more inclusive and tolerant country than we were before the boomer years - that boomers brought about social change based on the essential values of equality, personal freedom, pluralism, and environmental protection. Unfortunately, we too often take these gains for granted. Boomers have their problems, and Steinhorn acknowledges them, but which generation didn't have problems? And does anyone realistically want to go back to the old ways? So read this book. It'll be an eye-opener.

As a pre-Baby Boomer who has often been critical of the Boomer legacy, I must admit I was enormously impressed and moved by Leonard Steinhorn's "The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy." Indeed, the author has given me an entirely new perspective on what the Boomer generation was trying to achieve, did achieve, and continues to achieve. For it was this generation that put so much toil, sweat and tears -- if not blood -- into forcing America to live up to the ideals and principles of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution. In this sense, they were every bit as patriotic as the "Greatest Generation" that fought World War II. It was a patriotism rooted in our highest values and aspirations as a nation and as a people. From the very first page, Steinhorn seizes the reader's interest -- a tribute to his superb, ever-fresh and provocative literary style, no less than to the power of his ideas, facts and fundamental premise. What's more, he is truly fair and balanced, acknowledging the excesses of the Boomer legacy while giving proper respect and credit to the "Greatest Generation." It is also an uplifting book with an optiimistic outlook on the future and even a hopeful view of our own troubled times. "Even amid the grimmest of days," writes the author, "let us celebrate how much of a better nation we've become over the last generation." Thanks to this most compelling book, I have a far greater appreciation of the Boomer generation and just how much it has helped "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

As a Generation Xer, it would be easy to buy into the unfortunate media cariacture of Baby Boomers as a largely materialistic and self-indulgent generation bent on exploiting the American dream for their own selfish desires. But that is simply not the truth. In a wonderfully written and meticulously argued book, Mr. Steinhorn has thoughtfully described how Baby Boomers have done more to hold America true to its values than preceding generations. On issues ranging from civil rights, womens rights, environmental standards, the workplace and education, the battles fought and won by Baby Boomers have made America a more open, free and egalitarian society. I read with great interest this important, provocative book. While it may create controvery among those who Mr. Steinhorn describes as "cultural Luddites", nobody can dispute the facts presented by the author.