The Authors’ Choice
Web Sites on Seasonal History and Generations
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last update: 1-18-97
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The authors are honored to see so many of our readers take to the web and apply or extend our ideas in so many creative directions. In the past, when readers came and asked us where they could find out more, we told them the obvious: Look in our earlier books and articles and look in the bibliographies contained therein. Now, we have something else to tell them: Look on the web. A candid notice up front. The following site list does not pretend to be comprehensive. If you want to dig up everything there is on seasonal history and generational lifecycles, you will want to look at any number of sites containing lists that are much bigger than ours. (Indeed, most of the sites we mention below contain such lists). The sole virtue of our list is that it is our own. Very simply, this is what we would tell a friend who comes and asks us that challenging question: So, where do I find out more?
For concise web summaries of our work, see the two reviews by Jessica Bailey: Generations and Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? See also the two mini-reviews available at Amazon Books (search by author for Howe, Neil and then click Generations or 13th Gen). For a couple of excellent youth-written reviews, see 13th Generation and 13th-Gen .
First stop: Bill Murray’s Time Page. Here you can take a full-service tour of the saecular perspective on history, complete with tables, charts, definitions, bulletin boards--and countless hyperlinks to other sites. Another tabular overview is available at The Silent Generation (of which more below). We’re also delighted to notice the growing number of efforts to apply the saeculum and archetypes to concrete historical questions. For a serious take on post-war changes in America’s political economy, see Chuck Jorgensen’s and Kurt Sechooler’s The Millennial Files . For a discussion of America’s changing view of progress, see The Future of Progress . For an analysis of how generational and technological change interact, see Generation X + Technology = Y and 13th Generation. For how colleges can best fit the needs of today’s youth, see Reengineering for the 13th Generation . And, of course, there’s the bottom-line angle: See Generational-Targeted Marketing . On a more academic note, don’t miss two superb papers by Rebecca Gilley at John F. Kennedy University: Generations’ Visions and Reactives and the American Myth . If you want to learn more about the whole anthropological concept of “chronos sapiens”--man immersed in temporal rhythms--you will be as riveted as we were by Times of Our Lives . Personally, we think it’s pointless to search for cycles without starting with a plausible thesis (about society, politics, the economy, or whatever). But if you like to hunt blind for magic numbers, there’s plenty on the web to interest you, starting with The Foundation for the Study of Cycles. and the Longwave Press homepage. At Long Waves and Historical Generation , you’ll find a generational contribution to that hermetic “long cycle” tradition in economics. (There’s more where this comes from--but little of it is yet on the web.) For those wishing to meditate on the generational might-have-been’s of American history, check out Why the Civil War? And what about alternative generational futures? Take a cyberjourney to The Shadowrun Generations . Most of the above locations double as hyperlink hubs. One superb site whose sole purpose is to list sites on generations and cycles is Wes Volkenant’s List. If it’s not there, it probably doesn’t exist.
In Generations , we noted with some amazement that no one has yet written a decent collective biography of perhaps the most tightly bonded and linear-minded peer group in American history--the one whose lifecycle perfectly defines the “American Century.” Yes, we’re talking about the G.I. Generation. A similar silence now haunts the web. Won’t someone please fill the void? For the Silent Generation, your first stop should be Jim Brett’s The Silent Generation , a wonderful effort to define a generation and map its trajectory--full of hyperlinks to other kindred peer sites and sensitive retrospectives. As you might expect, the web groans under the weight of “Boomer” sites, most of which (alas) are about as serious as a group hug and reflective as a strip mall--full of self-help therapeutics and tacky memorabilia. Start with the mother of all Boomer sites, Boomers International . And then work your way to such assorted Beaver Cleaver outposts as Boomer’s Information Kiosk or Bill’s Baby Boomer Pages or Boomernet or Baby Boomers Homepage . There is so much here that must either fascinate or horrify Americans of other ages! (Among the genuinely absorbing exceptions: Check out A Timeline of the Counterculture .) The most important generational discussions are always conducted by the generation currently coming of age--the one that is still forging its role in society and its direction in history. What gives today’s “Generation X” chatter an extra twist is that the discussion is less about what this generation can be than about what it can do . For overall interpretations, you might start with Generation X or Webster University--Labeled Generation X or The ‘Thirteenth’ Generation’s Lesson. At the pop culture end, try X Avenue or Children of the Eighties . At the political end, Generation X: Unplugged or Jeremy Rifkin’s Page. For some bigger site lists, see, Links for the 13th Generation or Generation X or Some Generation X Links . And what about today’s youngest generation, born since the early 1980s, just now establishing a bridgehead into high school. To our knowledge, the only site on the Millennial Generation is a penetrating essay by Adam Cadre, And a Purple Dinosaur Shall Lead Them. But stay tuned. Many more sites are sure to follow before the turn of the real millennium.
If you are moved to discuss the saeculum or generations with others, please join in the conversations on this site or on The Time Page . If you’d like to visit or join a usenet group that frequents these issues, go to the alt.society.generation-x homepage. If you’re interested in joining a “Generations” e-mail discussion group, contact Jessica Bailey’s ongoing electronic salon at generations-request@lists.handmadesw.com
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