Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
This review originally appeared in Science Fiction & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter
This book is a must for anyone who is interested in the development of a society over a period of time. The authors lay out the fundamentals of generational theory in language that will be clear to the layperson. With clear and easily grasped examples from American history they illustrate this theory and show how the basic pattern has repeated itself again and again, with only one incomplete cycle in the entirity of American history.
Generational theory is based upon the concept of a cycle of four generations, the Idealist, the Reactive, the Civic and the Adaptive, which repeats itself again and again. Each generation grows up in a world created by the previous three generations' activities at the particular ages they are in at the time. Thus the cycle is self-perpetuating and shapes the entire flow of history.
Anyone who is working on a future-history or involved in intensive world-building will want to take a look at this book. Even if you don't agree with their conlusions as applied to American history, the ideas will help in constructing believable societies through a span of time.
Last updated November 4, 2010