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Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster Hardcover – January 12, 2021

by Helen Andrews (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 334 ratings
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"Baby Boomers (and I confess I am one): prepare to squirm and shake your increasingly arthritic little fists. For here comes essayist Helen Andrews."--Terry Castle

With two recessions and a botched pandemic under their belt, the Boomers are their children's favorite punching bag. But is the hatred justified? Is the destruction left in their wake their fault or simply the luck of the generational draw?

In Boomers, essayist Helen Andrews addresses the Boomer legacy with scrupulous fairness and biting wit. Following the model of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians, she profiles six of the Boomers' brightest and best. She shows how Steve Jobs tried to liberate everyone's inner rebel but unleashed our stultifying digital world of social media and the gig economy. How Aaron Sorkin played pied piper to a generation of idealistic wonks. How Camille Paglia corrupted academia while trying to save it. How Jeffrey Sachs, Al Sharpton, and Sonya Sotomayor wanted to empower the oppressed but ended up empowering new oppressors.

Ranging far beyond the usual Beatles and Bill Clinton clichés, Andrews shows how these six Boomers' effect on the world has been tragically and often ironically contrary to their intentions. She reveals the essence of Boomerness: they tried to liberate us, and instead of freedom they left behind chaos.
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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Sentinel
  4. Publication date
    January 12, 2021
  5. Dimensions
    5.8 x 0.88 x 8.6 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0593086759
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0593086759
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Helen Andrews has written the first book to treat the Baby Boomers not just as youthful dreamers but also as ruthless wielders of power, and to account for what their dreams have cost us. A groundbreaking reassessment of the last generation by one of the bravest and best writers of this one.”—Christopher Caldwell, author of The Age of Entitlement

“Baby boomers (and I confess I am one): prepare to squirm and shake your increasingly arthritic little fists. For here comes essayist Helen Andrews, incendiary new critic of left-wing pieties, youthful scourge of 'disastrous' sixties idealism and its legacies, and all-round millennial conservative whippersnapper par excellence. Even when infuriating or wrong—and Andrews can be both—she is irresistibly intelligent, writes like a dream, and asks questions so uncomfortable and fundamental that the bravery, honesty, and moral seriousness of her approach cannot be gainsaid. Boomers—shall we go there?—is an essential book for our woebegotten time. Excuse me, folks, while I kiss the sky.”—Terry Castle, Walter A. Haas Professor of the Humanities at Stanford University, author of The Professor

“As a committed but self-hating Baby Boomer, I've read Helen Andrews' work with an uneasy mixture of trepidation and admiration—admiration because she combines a luminous intelligence with a wit that's as glistening and sharp as a straight razor, and trepidation because I realize she is about to turn those weapons on me and my kind. We deserve it, of course, but that doesn't make it any less scary.”—Andrew Ferguson, staff writer at The Atlantic, author of Crazy U and Land of Lincoln

About the Author

Helen Andrews is a senior editor at The American Conservative. Previously, she was the managing editor of the Washington Examiner magazine and a 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, First Things, Claremont Review of Books, The Hedgehog Review, American Affairs, and National Review. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sentinel (January 12, 2021)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593086759
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593086759
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.8 x 0.88 x 8.6 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 334 ratings

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Helen Andrews

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Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
334 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the writing quality very well written and impressed with the author's knowledge and wit. They also describe the reading experience as great. Opinions are mixed on the depth of ideas, with some finding them insightful and entertaining, while others say they're poorly researched and put together.

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Writing qualityReading experienceEnjoymentDepth of ideas
12 customers mention "Writing quality"9 positive3 negative

Customers find the writing quality of the book very well written, entertaining, and intelligent. They also say the wit is sharp and the research is impeccable.

"This is a very good back. Well written. Interesting anecdotes and explanations...." Read more

"...On the positive side, Helen Andrews is an entertaining writer and clearly intelligent...." Read more

"...The negative tone of the writing is very clear as the Author is "very pissed off" it would appear, in that she will never enjoy the..." Read more

"...I enjoyed the author's style and I was impressed with her knowledge and wit, but I think the idea of writing about representative boomers from tech..." Read more

7 customers mention "Reading experience"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book a great read.

"Brutally honest and laugh out loud funny. Great book club choice. Lots to ponder and discuss." Read more

"This is an interesting book. I am learning a lot about contemporary society and factors that made us what we are...." Read more

"Excellent book. Really gets into the weeds of how we live in a world practically hand crafted by baby boomers. Well worth the read." Read more

"...An extremely well-written and enjoyable read." Read more

3 customers mention "Enjoyment"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful, entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny. They also say it's a great book club choice.

"...All in all, the book is often funny and very personable, but it's big on opinions, short on argument, and too mired in its own grudges to convince..." Read more

"Brutally honest and laugh out loud funny. Great book club choice. Lots to ponder and discuss." Read more

"Insightful and Entertaining..." Read more

11 customers mention "Depth of ideas"6 positive5 negative

Customers are mixed about the depth of ideas. Some find the book insightful and entertaining, while others say it's poorly researched and put together. They also say the author didn't provide substantial proof of the book's premise.

"This is a very good back. Well written. Interesting anecdotes and explanations...." Read more

"...It just seemed sort of poorly researched and put together.I will say that I thought the chapter on Steve Jobs was relatively well done...." Read more

"...Great book club choice. Lots to ponder and discuss." Read more

"...As it stands now, it is deeply flawed because of a false premise that seemed designed to sell books rather than expose a truth." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

El-Lukerino
5.0 out of 5 stars Scathing, Sizzling, and Sassy
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2022
Verified Purchase
Helen Andrews hit the nail right on the head with this sardonic new classic. As you read you'll quickly sort yourself into one of the three camps to be found in this section of reviews.

The neutral Gen X observer who can see the criticisms and the changes in society day to day, but finds it all to be a tad exaggerated.

The aggrieved Millennial or Gen Z who knows firsthand how badly institutions like colleges and the family are, who is lucky to make enough money to cover gas and rent, and who hasn't lived more than nine years without a roommate.

The seething Boomer sitting comfortably in their owned home with their pension and their new car, wondering why these ungrateful children don't appreciate the beautiful world they've been given.

If you've been outside in the past two years and gone farther afield than the Bingo Night or the Country Club, you're likely to draw some very poignant conclusions. You're also likely to see a kind of resonance between the Boomers and the Millennials, a reflection through a mirror, darkly.

Throughout the whole book, agree or not on all the details, you have little choice but to accept that Helen Andrews has a keen intellect and a keyboard as incisive as a surgeon's tools.
6 people found this helpful
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Rosebud
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2021
Verified Purchase
This is a very good back. Well written. Interesting anecdotes and explanations. Accurately analyzes the institutions that have been degraded over the past 50 years. But inaccurately blames all of this changes on boomers; but still a thought provoking read.
Yes, I am a boomer.
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A. Martin
4.0 out of 5 stars Makes a comeback when it skewers Sharpton
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2022
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Many criticisms against this book are accurate. Assumptions that all the readers are believers, conservatives, angry men, etc., are true.

I am all of those, a boomer too. But don't think I don't need convincing. After all, that's why I bought the book.

Also, too much of this sort of thing: Paglia was a modern decadent writer. The Decadents were a 19th century French movement....yawn. Do we need that? I do have other books you know.

My biggest criticism however is that I can't tell which characteristics of boomers she finds offensive or unwanted.

She is such a good writer though you have to just forget what the title of the book is.

Would have preferred a less biographical take, to a principled approach. A survey of which guiding principles boomers fail at and how that fuels the "disaster" she speaks of.

These would be: tolerance, sexual ambiguity, weak commitments, expediency, materialism, cultural ambivalence, moral equivocation, self love, religious abandonment, lack of national pride, technology dependence, etc.

Guess I was looking for a more philosophical approach.

However, she has a powerful mind. I just think it needs experience and direction.
5 people found this helpful
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Common Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars Boomer virus
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2021
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I’m a boomer, exactly the same age as Camille Paglia, one of the persons examined by the author and whose book “Break, Blow, Burn” I often return to. In 2013 Paglia wrote, “It’s time to put my baby-boom generation out to pasture! We’ve had our day and managed to muck up a hell of a lot.” I agree. The baby boomers have utterly destroyed what was good and renown for quality in our society—especially education. Tragically, certain vociferous boomers continue to thrive, a handful of whom Andrews turns her sights on in “Boomers”. They self-righteously go on and on like a virus, infecting the minds and lives of the younger generations while sucking all the air out of history till the Western world has become a hospital ward of Alzheimer’s patients living blissfully in the present moment, self-indulgent and oblivious of the past, incapable of self-questioning, looking in the mirror not to doubt and truly wonder, but to preen and praise and love themselves.

A worthy companion to this book would be one written a hundred years ago, “The Philosophy of Inequality,” by Nicholai Berdyaev, in the immediate wake of the Bolshevik coup in Moscow. All that was ill and wrong then is being reactivated in our own time. Interestingly, Berdyaev’s book is on Vladimir Putin’s recommended reading list for his governors.
74 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Barbara Kay
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening overview of a transformative era
Reviewed in Canada on April 25, 2021
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Deeply engaging journey through a historical period through the lives of significant achievers in the realms of tech, culture, race relations and the law. Fast pace with great human interest and from a deep well of knowledge. Original insights.
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Doug1943
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, with useful information.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 7, 2021
Verified Purchase
I enjoyed reading this book -- the author is a journalist, not a social scientist, so we do not have a deep analysis of what is destroying America ... but we do have some interesting episodes and anecdotes presented. I don't think her analysis of Jeffrey Sachs in Russia is fair, however. And conservatives should admit that the invasion of Iraq was strongly opposed by most lefties. We did that one to ourselves. Her article, in American Conservative, about the 'Latin American future' of the United States -- the general loss of 'social trust' as parts of the government become openly the instruments of various groups, rather than even having a pretense of neutrality -- is a good insight into what's happening to America. Assuming our species doesn't destroy itself in a big war, future historians a century or two from now, analyzing the collapse of the American Republic, will want to use her book as a source.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Loved the zingers
Reviewed in Australia on February 17, 2021
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When I hear criticism of my generation, I tend to respond with ‘ you think boomers are bad, wait till you see what later generations are cooking up’. Helen, however, has pointed out some trends that the future will look back on as key turning points for the worse. Very readable. There’s a zinger on every page.
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Anne Spicer
4.0 out of 5 stars Boomers and why this book makes Boomers Squirm
Reviewed in Canada on February 15, 2021
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I am currently reading, Boomers: The Men and Women who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster. Written by a Millennial, it dives into the legacies of six Boomers of note, I.e., Steve Jobs, Jeffrey Sachs, Al Sharpton, etc., and how they failed. The intro was rather glum (nothing like being unceasingly castigated) but I am now into the Boomer bios so it is easier to read,I.e., not a constant blaming. The author, Helen Andrews, has done her research. The book ends on a chapter about Millenials. I’m hoping that at this chapter the bony finger of blame shifts so that there is a hopeful outlook and realistic suggestions as to what changes their generation will undertake. Maybe not .... I shall continue to read hopeful in spirit. In one of the testimonials, it was said we Boomers would squirm and shake our increasingly arthritic little fists when reading this book. Well, I wanted to hear from the Millenials and she does make us squirm and it appears they are taking no prisoners
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Feyi Fawehinmi
5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic debut by a great essayist
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 21, 2021
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Provocative, bracing and always well written. I’ve enjoyed Helen’s essays for many years and it’s great to finally have her in book form.

This is the definitive guide to insulting your parents generation when you feel they deserve it
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