From Generation to Generation

The republication of From Generation to Generation-almost half a century after its first appearance in 1956-constitutes a good occasion for a look at the way in which problems of youth and generations developed in contemporary societies. In this brilliant, pioneering effort, different approaches in the social sciences to the analysis of these issues receive close scrutiny. Eisenstadt reexamines these issues by including in this edition several new chapters on this theme. New to this edition are essays on "The Archetypal Patterns of Youth;" "Intellectual Rebellion and Generation Conflict;" and "Youth, Generation Consciousness and Historical Change." All of these articles shift emphasis from the structural-institutional analysis presented in the original edition of From Generation to Generation to the importance of cultural definitions of youth and generations in radically different societies. In a new introduction, "Sociological Analysis and Youth Rebellion," Eisenstadt undertakes a historical as well as analytical treatment of young people. He reviews decades of alienation of the young, the rebellion of students, and more generally, intergenerational conflict. His major finding is that youth groups tend to arise in those societies whose integrative principles are set aside from family and kinship relations. His work now considers recent dynamic specifics of youth culture as they relate to existing theory, the social and political policies of institutional entrepreneurs as they attempt to bring youth back into the fold of adult society, and the impact on society of the ideology of rebellion. The author states that with the young, any given situation of change opens up a variety of possibilities for development of new types of institutional, organizational, and behavioral patterns. Hence, in the crystallization of institutional frameworks a crucial part is played by those people who evince a special capacity to set up broad orientations to propound new norms and to articulate new goals. The same, of course, applies to the analysis of age groups and youth activities, which Eisenstadt undertakes in this classic work.