Aaron S. (shuffdog) reviewed on 4/16/2009 + 31 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

It may be that I have a short attention span for sociological theory, but 500 pages is certainly overkill for understanding what is actually a very interesting theory of generations. I believe I was persuaded to the plausibility of the dynamic within about 30 pages. What was lacking was an exploration of why this would be true of specifically America over the proposed timespan, whether this speaks to any American 'constant' that throughout that timespan supports these cycles (as opposed to creating other types of cycles), whether any such cycles can be found in other cultures, and what are the causes in those cultures?

For 500 pages it was nothing but charts, more charts, discussion about diagonal lines running across time, parents and children, anecdote after uncited anecdote, and it was all very unorganized and forbiddingly verbose. But it might be that I have a short attention span.

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