Courtesy St. Martin's Press
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Web Exclusive. . .
Excerpt from Leonard Steinhorn's The Greater Generation
January 2006
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"It was springtime a couple of years ago when I mentioned to one of my honors students that I was thinking of writing a book on the baby boom generation. She had just completed an excellent paper on the press and she always had intelligent things to say in class about politics and media. This was clearly a bright and interesting student. But after hearing about my book idea, she paused for a moment, then mumbled a few words about Vietnam, then said something about boomers doing drugs when they were young, and then quite innocently asked what else boomers ever accomplished and why on earth I would write a book about them.
Momentarily taken aback, I decided against launching into a long explanation and instead asked her a few simple questions: What did she think of women's liberation? Was it better when women deferred to men? Should diversity be a priority on college campuses? Is there anything wrong with interracial dating? Should gay people hide their sexual orientation? Should kids be raised to think on their own or follow their elders? Would she prefer working in a hierarchy or in a flatter organization? Should environmental protection be a major concern? On every question she gave what would be considered a fairly liberal response, and when we talked further it was clear where she stood—yes on women's rights, yes on diversity, yes on equality, yes on accepting gays, yes on independent thinking, yes on the environment, yes on more democratic workplaces, yes on greater personal freedom. But then she asked with what our conversation had to do with my book. The connection between these issues and the baby boom generation never occurred to her. It's as if she had taken for granted that the world had always been this way. And so the main idea of my book was born."
From The Greater Generation by Leonard Steinhorn. Copyright © 2006 by the author and reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Press, LLC.
How much of an impact did the Boomers’ legacy have on their children? For a Generation Y point of view, see Aaron Shulman’s book review of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable—Than Ever Before.
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