Customer Reviews

Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who'Ve Lived It

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Studs Terkel captures in this volume what few children of the new millennium will ever learn about or experience: how our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents grew up, grew old, and left footprints on the twentieth century. His vignettes of life throughout the century, focused on the lives of amazing Americans from coast to coast, are quite profound. Terkel did not profile famous athletes, politicians, and CEOs; his interviews capture the lives of those who have made - and continue to make - an impact on our local communities.

It did not take very long to become addicted to this book. Terkel captures some of the most valuable American minds at just the right moment. The interviews give a first-hand look at history while capturing pearls of wisdom for the future. I recommend this volume as a gift and as a textbook for students. What Studs Terkel has captured here is worthy reading for any generation.

A host of compelling stories marks COMING OF AGE as one of the top efforts from oral historian Studs Terkel. We hear from dozens of outstanding senior citizens, each one giving their personal remembrance of American life in the 20th Century. The mostly liberal interviewees range from ordinary citizens to baseball activist Marvin Miller, Congressmen Henry Gonzalez and (the late) Charles Hayes, and Chicago medical director Quentin Young. Readers get a strong personal sense of major events like the Depression, World War II, McCarthyism and Civil Rights - something one seldom gets from dry academic texts. The book also lends credence to tales many of us once heard from older and often now-departed relatives.

I gave COMING OF AGE just four starts because Terkel's increasing rigidity in sticking with liberal interviewees deprives readers of an honest cross-section of views. Despite this flaw, COMING OF AGE remains a moving effort.

American society suffers from collective Alzheimer's, says Studs Terkel, "and the young are suffering from it the most severely. We don't know anything aboout the past and we don't seem to want to know." The author of widely-praised, bestselling books like Hard Times, Working, Race and The Good War, Terkel interviews 70 strong minded and outspoken Americans, the youngest of whom is 70, the oldest 99. Nearly every page is mesmerizing. Particularly delightful are his interviews with art critic Katherine Kuh (at age 89) and Sophia Mumford (at 94), the widow of Lewis Mumford.

Studs Terkel does what he does best: talk to people. This is classic Terkel as he gets octocentarians to relfect upon their lives. Much of the reading is interesting as people talk about memorable events in their lives. Yet, I think this book falls short. We don't learn enough about what it means to have lived this long. What it feels like, what life now looks like from their long view. I found a lot of the material too similar to Working Terkel's classic book about the work people do. I would much prefer to learn about what these people think about their lives than listen to their stories about their careers and work life. This was covered in Working, so Coming of Age does not significantly add to Terkel's previous work.

Pulitzer Prize winner Studs Terkel, widely known for his oral histories on World War II, work, race and the Great Depression, here offers an oral history of the twentieth century. The 70 people on record range in age from 70 to 99 and represent a wide variety of endeavors from labor organizers to CEOs, cops, lawyers, philanthropists, doctors, environmental crusaders, artists, clergy, farmers and more.

In addition to a zest for life, which they all share (few, despite physical infirmities, consider themselves "retired"), a few common themes emerge in these recollections. Whatever their background, almost all were affected by the Depression and World War II and a surprising number felt the blight of McCarthyism.

Yet most view the young today as facing a tougher road than they did. And while they all claim to find younger people invigorating, most deplore the modern lack of community feeling, the emphasis on self, the ignorance of history and unwillingness to learn from the struggles of the past.

The Catholic priest who was a gung-ho soldier in World War II, learned about race in a poor southern parish and went on to join the Berrigans in protesting the Vietnam War, says that what's "lacking today is a national cause in which all can join." You could say he spoke too soon or those were the days.

Jazz musician Milt Hinton's grandmother was a slave of Jefferson Davis. He recalls the apprenticeship of his youth, sitting in with the greats. When prompted he cites the more absurd of racial indignities faced touring the south but prefers to dwell on the good times, voicing regret that those opportunities don't exist for today's young black musicians.

All of these oldsters have strong convictions about what's wrong with the world, although surprisingly few sound cranky about it. "I'm deeply accustomed to giving advice that is not heard," says economist John Kenneth Galbraith, a long time critic of "private affluence and public squalor."

Many of them find a new freedom in old age. "Young people don't have this liberty," says environmental activist David Brower. "They can't alienate themselves too much from the system."

Some seem to live almost wholly in the present. A Nisei school teacher who spent World War II in an internment camp spends her entire interview enthusing about the young children she teaches and the future before them.

An admiral who directs the Center for Defense Information, a whistle-blowing group, was a model naval officer. "My fervor and dissent has increased....as you get older, you realize that whether it be a justice of the Supreme Court or the president of the United States, he's just a human being subject to human foibles."

Terkel, a feisty fighter himself, has naturally picked a large proportion of social and political activists - people who see the world as imperfect then and imperfect now - but always worth fighting for. This is an invigorating and thoughtful collection and a fine perspective on the last century.

This is the first Studs Terkel book I have read. Easy to read interviews with Americans over 70 that gives us some of the wisdom of the older generation. A very good book!

WBG

The Celts have a term for people like Studs Terkel. Mr. Terkel is one of our cultural Shanahee. In the world of the ancient Celts, the story around the fire was the way in which cultural values, community and family history was transmuted to future generations. The role of the Shanahee was to keep the family tales and pass them on to future generations. That is exactly what Mr. Terkel does with this book. Wisdom and the values of the past are not something that younger generations today value so I fear that Mr. Terkel's book, although very interesting and informative may not be read by many nor the great pearls of wisdom discovered and carried forward.
Over sixty elders were interviewed by Studs Terkel. After reading about their lives, their adventures, their hopes and dreams for the future, and their indomitable spirits, there are some that I would really like to have had the opportunity to meet and other that I did not find as interesting.
Since this book is a collection or oral history interviews, it is not a typical book that a gerontologist would use for research yet the book is helpful to those desiring to know more about the life experiences of older persons. As I read the book and entered the life experiences of those interviewed, I was moved and challenged and delighted as I read about people whose lives impacted and created the world I live in today.
After reading Terkel's book, and this was the first book that I read written by Terkel, I think that oral history is an under utilize in teaching history and makes a contribution to understanding the lives of people, common people, who were part of making the history we learn about in text books. In many ways oral histories make history come to life.
I don't believe that Studs Terkel set out to write this book as a means of making a contribution to any one particular academic field. I think his motivation was two fold. The first purpose was to give the reader insight into the common person's impact into the events that formed the 20th Century. The second purpose was to allow those who he interviewed to tell their story and in recording their story, allow that person to leave their legacy to the world. Coming of Age contributes to gerontology as a field because it elevates the art of oral history, it highlights the importance of oral history in understanding the life experiences of older adults, and it allows a means of informally testing formal theories of aging by comparing and contrasting those formal theories with the actual life experiences of real people.

As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments here, where they are pertinent, as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his "The Good War": an Oral History of World War II.

Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of "Coming Of Age" serves a dual purpose- to reflect on the working lives of working people (mainly) after they have made their mark and moved out of the work force and as a reflection of one of Studs' preoccupations- the fate of his generation- the so-called "greatest generation".

Probably Terkel's most famous oral history is his "Working" which chronicles the thoughts of working people and others, circa 1980, about their lives their aspirations and their inspirations. That book was weighted a bit toward the experiences of those who came of age in the Great Depression of the 1930's , fought World War II and gained a measure of security in the dizziness of the post World War II Cold War. His "The Good War", of necessity, takes dead aim at that population. Here we have those same recollections (in some case literally as previous interviewees get to have their say once again), circa 1995, from the perspective of "retirement". Some of the material is interesting but, frankly, as I know from personal experience running through a litany of life's physical, mental and social ailments gets a little thin on the ground after a while.

Moreover, while I found "Working" to be very interesting as a sociological study and as a means of giving voice to the preoccupations of "working stiffs" this present volume "does not speak to me". As a member of the generation after the above-mentioned one, "the Generation of '68", my preoccupations are not the same and so those experiences expressed here of retirement and the "great awakening" do not feel right. In short, this book turns solely as a last homage by Studs to the so-called "greatest generation", his generation. While I am painfully aware of the shortcomings of my own "Generation of '68" as a catalyst for social change I have long argued that the World War II generation, my parents' generation, sold its heritage out for a mess of pottage. So that feeling has to be factored in here, as well.

Studs personal fate as a victim of the "red scare" in the 1950's is only the most vivid example at hand for my belief that his generation sold out for a security blanket- and not a very good one. The virtual "civil war" between the generations during most of the Vietnam period of the 1960's and beyond (remember those Reagan Democrats of the 1980's were, for the most part, those self-same `greatest generation' types) graphically speaks to that difference in values. Nevertheless read Studs' take on his generation's swansong here and read all of Studs' oral histories, good, bad or indifference to get a snapshot of what America, and Americans liked, disliked or didn't know a thing about in the 20th century. Kudos, Brother Terkel.