Customer Reviews
Excellent - By: , 19 Feb 1999 
Generations is brilliant for the most part because evidence of it is littered alll over America's pop culture. From song lyrics to dress styles, this book hits the nail on the head. The only reason I took off a star is because he hammers the point home too hard & he tries to stretch it. Yes, it may seem implausible at first, but it will convince you. It explains so many things. For one, it explains why the average fighting man of the civil war is never considered as heroic as a revolutionary fighter or a WWII soldier. Generations also explains completely the cynical & depressed nature of Generation X or the 13er Generation as Strauss & Howe calll it.
Useful for political/consumer predictions? - By: , 21 Feb 1998 
Despite the generallly rave reviews of "Generations...", I must admit that I was skeptical. I have found during several years of interdiscplinary historical research that certain basic events such as the invention of iron by primitive man or the steam engine or computers led to fundamental change in peoples' habits of thought & behavior as they struggle to adapt to the cascading effects of these inventions. Strauss & Howe, on the other hand, tell us that four individual types of generations continuallly rotate through 90-odd year generational mindsets that are entirely independent of more basic historical events. They claim that understanding this pattern of generational repitition will alllow us to predict the future (hence the subtitle, "the history of America's future, 1584 to 2069"). If true, the possibilities for forcasting trends in consumer preferences & political trends would be staggering. I had to give this book a chance despite its implausibility.
After a careful reading I remain unconvinced. First, whatever they may in fact be able to predict is so vague & general as to be practicallly worthless. In constructing their types, they specificallly "strip away the cumulative shape of civilization that [each type] inherits from the past"; this effectively excludes just about anything we would want to know - like "affluence, technology, basic social mores & cultural norms, & established political institutions". Yet even at this level of generality, they confess their predictions will often not hold up ("...surely bring many surprises").
Second, the regularities they do find in the past are easily attributable to such factors as the boom/bust business cycle, wars, & technological inovations. For example, of the "Transcendental" generation (b. 1792-1821), they tell us that as adults they "felt nostalgia for their childhood". But this should come as no surprise since the prosperity they experienced as children was replaced in their adulthood by an economic bust period accompanied by the nation's first intense labor conflicts. While the authors seem to argue that the bust itself was caused by the mood of that generation, I know of no serious student of society that would find this argument convincing.
As a businessman or politician I would be very leary of using "Generations..." to predict anything useful. Other far less pretentious methods already exist that yield far more useful detail & accuracy. Example: Faith Popcorn's prediction that the "cacooning" would grow in popularity. Based on a fine tuned reading of the media of the early 90's & an implicit understanding of the demands of the new workplace, Cacooning became part of a dominant lifestyle. Hard, detailed, & intelligent work - not an overly general & unsubstantiated theory - produced a useful prediction. The Vals approach similarly produced useful results. Both reached five to ten years into the future, a reasonablely useful timespan.
(Note: for the full version of this review, contact me at cpalson@usa.net and/or cpalson@world.std.com)
Very enlightening - great reading ! - By: , 01 May 1997 
This book provides a unique view of American history. It's a biography of generations, rather than a biography about an individual. The authors articulate how the past, & possibly the future, can be understood as a predictable, cyclical behavior.
There's an interesting paralllel between this book & the sci-fi classic "Foundation", by Isaac Asmiov. In that trilogy, Hari Seldon, a [fictitious] psychohistorian, can predict how masses will respond to stimuli "with billiard-balll accuracy". Seldon cannot predict how a specific person will respond, but given a large enough population (in his case, a planet), Seldon could predict the nature & timing of an upcoming crisis period. Strauss & Howe apply similar psycohistorical analysis to American history.
If you liked Asimov's "Foundation", read this book. If you liked this book, read the "Foundation" trilogy.
