Generation in history-sociological perspective

Abstract

On the example of the works of R. Wohl “Generation 1914”, J. Appleby “Inheriting the Revolution: The First Generation of Americans”, G. Elder “Children of the Great Depression: Social Change in Life Experience” the authors examines the features of the historical and sociological narrative about the generation, which belongs to the rubric “social history”. The first two books are based on the analysis of written sources and represent the “intellectual history of a generation”. The monograph on children of depression formulates the principles of longitudinal research in the concept of “life course”. In all three publications, a generation is established and confirmed in the corresponding status by grandiose Events: war, revolution, depression. The focus of attention is on something novel that the new generation intends to introduce into the world order and attitude, something from which it decisively dissociates itself and does not accept. All three refereed books contain two important accounts of people in the 19th and 20th centuries (or the authors who tell about these people?). First of all, they see the future as amenable to their energetic efforts, plastic. Or, to put it another way, our projects are realizable, social constraints are surmountable, and circumstances can well be constructed according to attractive value configurations and ethical parameters. But as they grow up, the transition to middle and old age in the context of grandiose Events and after them, the individual’s and group’s (generation’s) significance of the future is irresistibly diminishing, and the ideals and expectations of youth often remain in the sphere of the possible, encouraging the conversation about the “lost generation”.