Boomers

The Baby Boomers have taken plenty of blame from their children, who point to two recessions and a badly handled pandemic. Helen Andrews asks whether that resentment is fair, and whether the damage left behind is really the Boomers' doing or just the result of when they happened to be born.

Andrews is an essayist, and she follows the model of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians by profiling six of the generation's most prominent figures. Steve Jobs set out to free everyone's inner rebel, yet helped create a stifling digital world of social media and the gig economy. Aaron Sorkin became a pied piper to a generation of idealistic policy wonks. Camille Paglia damaged academia while trying to rescue it. Jeffrey Sachs, Al Sharpton and Sonia Sotomayor all wanted to empower the oppressed, but ended up empowering new oppressors.

The book steers clear of the usual Beatles and Bill Clinton clichés. It argues that each of these six had an effect on the world that was often ironically opposed to what they intended. Andrews presents this as the essence of the Boomers: they set out to liberate us and left chaos behind instead of freedom. She describes her approach as scrupulously fair, with a sharp wit.