Synopses & Reviews
The Greatest Generation gets credit for winning World War II and braving the Depression. But the Baby Boomers? All they get credit for is knowing how to order a tall skim double latte. What really is the true legacy of the Boomers?Summoning the amazing sea changes they've made in American culture, this controversial book recasts the much-maligned Boomers as a Greater Generation with a lasting legacy of tolerance and equality for all.
Farewell, Donna Reed: "For women, the Baby Boom era has been one of breathtaking change--in a single generation American women have effected one of the greatest social metamorphoses in recorded history. What women are able to do today would have been unimaginable four or five decades ago, at best the stuff of utopian fantasy or science fiction."
Not Only Women: "The egalitarian norms of the Baby Boom have deeply changed men and will continue to do so for generations to come."
Diversity as a Moral Value: For too long, America denied blacks, gays, and other minorities their dignity and rights, but in the Boomer era we have enlarged the melting pot to include those once scorned and excluded. Boomers have led a culture war "to upend the rigid social structure of the Fifties and challenge centuries of entrenched norms and attitudes about race, ethnicity, religion, and sexuality."
The Greening of America: Under Boomers, environmental protection has become a powerful new norm in American society. No longer do we tolerate toxic run-offs and progress at any cost.
A Freer, More Open Society: Personal freedom, tolerance, openness, transparency, and equality--these are the values of the Baby Boom era, and we live them daily at home, work, school, and in our many relationships. The old ways--the prejudice, narrowmindedness, restrictive sex roles, smoke-filled rooms, double standards, rigid hierarchies--are going, going, gone thanks to Baby Boomers.
The media have it wrong: You don't need to fight a war to be a great generation. America today is far more open, inclusive, and equal than at any time in our history, and Boomers are the foot soldiers who made it happen. The Greater Generation tells their remarkable story. "The Greater Generation is a timely, passionate defense of the Baby Boom generation. . . . Leonard Steinhorn reminds us of the essential liberal spirit that defined the Boomers and how they changed our country for the better. In doing so, he illuminates the critical issues that continue to challenge them and their children." --Joe Conason, bestselling author of Big Lies and The Hunting of the President
"The Baby Boom generation changed the heart and soul of America. Leonard Steinhorn's The Greater Generation shows us how much better off we all are as a result." --Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class
"Steinhorn has written a smart and inspirational book that will be a boost to all Boomers, and will show their children why Mom and Dad know best." --Iris Krasnow, author of Surrendering to Marriage
"In contrast to their parents' idealized standing as the 'greatest generation,' Boomers have been gamely diminished as the 'worst generation.' And this book shouts ENOUGH!" --Brent Green, author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers
Synopsis
What is the legacy of the Boomers? That's the question this title answers by aiming at the heart of the culture wars. "What Tom Brokaw did for the 'Greatest Generation, ' Leonard Steinhorn does for Baby Boomers."--Rick Shenkman, author of "Presidential Ambition."
Synopsis
The Greatest Generation gets credit for winning World War II and braving the Depression. But the Baby Boomers? All they get credit for is knowing how to order a tall skim double latte. What really is the true legacy of the Boomers?
Summoning the amazing sea changes they've made in American culture, this passionately debated book recasts the much-maligned Boomers as a Greater Generation with a lasting legacy of tolerance and equality for all. From women's rights to environmental protections to curbing racial inequality, The Greater Generation tells the story of this generation's accomplishments---and finally gives Boomers their due.
Synopsis
“Lenny Steinhorn presents compelling evidence that Boomers significantly shaped—and improved—their times. This is a counterintuitive examination of a generation that is far more complex and far more influential than is commonly believed.” —Frank Senso, former CNN Washington bureau chief While the Greatest Generation deserves our praise for surviving the Depression and fighting in World War II, the Baby Boomers, this book argues, are in many ways as great a generation—if not greater—for how they have advanced equality and freedom at home. Its fashionable to mock Boomers as self-involved and materialistic. But what really is the true legacy of the Boomers?
To understand how Boomers have changed America, think back to the 1950s—but without the nostalgia. Women were kept at home, minorities were denied their dignity, homosexuality was a crime, and anyone who marched to a different drummer was labeled un-American and viewed as a threat.
Today we live in a far more open, inclusive, tolerant, and equal America than at any other time in our history. And thats because Baby Boomers, from the Sixties onward, have fought a great cultural war to free America from its prejudices, inequalities, and fears. The Greater Generation tells the story of this generations accomplishments—and finally gives Boomers their due.
“The Greater Generation reminds us that todays legacy of social justice, diversity, and individual freedom didnt just fall from the sky; its a consequence of a hard-fought progressive struggle fought on the home front by a morally engaged American generation.” —Marty Kaplan, Air America radio host and director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern Califormnia Annenberg School for Communication
About the Author
Leonard Steinhorn is a professor of communication at American University, where he teaches politics, media, and culture. He has written for major media, including
The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, International Herald Tribune, Salon.com, and
History News Network, and he appears frequently on broadcast news shows. He is a former political speechwriter and is coauthor of
By the Color of Our Skin, a critically acclaimed book on race relations.