Research Log 2

“Generations: History of America’s Future.” C-span. Booknotes, Washington. 31 Dec. 1991. Television.

Summary:

I watched a recording of a television broadcasting that was based off of the book Generations: History of America’s Future. The authors spoke about the purpose of their book and what it was all about. The main theme of the book was to show how the past shapes the future and how certain personality traits follow a generation from youth to old age. They discussed 18 different generations and how American’s society pulse to rhythms in families and at large. They describe a four part cycle that includes idealist (moralistic), reactive (pragmatic), civic (selfless), or adaptive (compromiser). They explain that the four part cycle can explain the history of America and predict the future patterns of American culture. They talk about how the ages of the millenniums are wild and not further educated and because of this the previous generation (boomers) felt a sense of guilt for the outcome of the new generation (millenniums). They followed generations from puritans to today’s children, which ended in the year 2003 in their research. At the end of the book the future is discussed. From their research they explained that the future after the millenniums will have just as dramatic changes as the previous generations. Most people think that people who are 25 are going to act the way 25 year-olds have always acted. They point out that this is not true and has never happened in the past.

Response:

Key concepts that related specifically to my research topic where things like how the boomers felt guilt for the outcome of the millenniums, how American’s society pulse to rhythms in families and at large, and how certain personality traits follow a generation from youth to old age. My reaction to these points was happy because of the fact that this is what I had previously thought. They mentioned how the past shapes the future and I personally strongly believe in this. They depicted how every generation has certain qualities and can be identified into certain categories.

Next Steps:

Hearing what they have to say and what was written in their book is information that I think more people need to know about. All of these points interested me and answered some questions that I had. Knowing that the boomers had an effect on the future generation proves that our present generation can impact the future generations. If we can realize this and take advantage of that fact we could change the future. This is exactly what I want to find out more about. The broadcast that I had watched was a summary of what the book was about if I read the whole book I think a lot of my questions could be answered. At the end of the broadcast some feedback was read that interest me as well. Seeing what people thought about this book and how current generations feel about this is something I would like to look into. I choose this source because it has a lot of interesting information that was helpful to me.