The Greater Generation by Leonard Steinhorn

The Greater Generation by Leonard Steinhorn

"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. It's 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 that's 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 generation's accomplishments--and finally gives Boomers their due.

"The Greater Generation reminds us that today's legacy of social justice, diversity, and individual freedom didn't just fall from the sky; it's 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

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.