Reviews for Teenagers

The average rating for Teenagers based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-09-25 00:00:00 Rory Lozano A pretty good an enlightening early history of “teenagers” from 1900-60s. It focuses a bit too much on pop culture and music trends (epiphenomena), and too little on the underlying economic and political changes that led to these realities. Knocked down a whole star for the awful, reactionary conclusion that seems at odds with the good history present in the rest of the book. I don’t know how, after seeing the development of teenagers in the 20th century, you’d conclude that kids these days have it too good and complain too much.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-11-25 00:00:00 Ismael Diaz A history that starts with the Depression as 13-19 year olds (no one called them teenagers then) are freed from the traditional burden of getting a job to help the family because there are no jobs. It continues to the 1970’s at which point teenagers have fully achieved a kind of self-determination as far as culture and identity is concerned. The economy plays an important role throughout, not just tough times, but prosperity, which is a prerequisite to cars and clothes and records. The author also documents the role of music. There’s Benny Goodman teens and Elvis Presley teens and Beatles teens. The adult world seemed to resist the development of teen culture every step of the way with one exception, marketers, for whom sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll made a sort of cha ching sound. This is a lively, interesting and altogether readable history. Having lived through a part of this period, I also found it rings true more often than not.