Boomers

The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster

By: Helen Andrews

Narrated by: Nicole Parnell

"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.

©2021 Helen Andrews (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"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)

We watched them destroy America.

Our parents gave their all and saved America. They made America great. We just sat bye and watched the left destroy the pillars of this country. Thomas Sowell addresses the awful policies decisions in “Dismantling America “,Helen puts a face on it and a living memory. Wonderful book.

Solid arguments delivered by semi-literate

It’s hard to believe this narrator was chosen for such an important book. She has no sense of English style and cannot pronounce words as simple as “biopic” and many others

The worst generation in history

Pretty insightful and fair in its assessment. If you are an establishment-PMC democrat who thinks kamala harris and pete buttiegig are good acceptable (potential) candidates then you will both really dislike this book and absolutely should read it. You can detect the author’s clear bias towards social-cultural conservatism but it generally doesn’t detract from her arguments if you a wholistic and reasonably non-partisan knowledge of US history and politics.

Great Book

I really enjoyed Andrews’ analysis of the culture today and the root causes of its decline. I invite all “non-boomers” to read this book and wrestle for themselves with the thesis therein. It’s easy to point fingers at the mistakes of others; it’s much harder to enact positive change in the here and now. I can only hope and pray that younger generations see both the follies and accomplishments of older generations and choose to adopt those values that are objectively virtuous and rid themselves of the corruption that is pervasive today.

Boomer goes the dynamite

Quality writing loaded with fun little asides (never knew everyone around Justice Warren thought he was dumb). The reader sounds like the robo lady from Portal tho.

What does OK Boomer really mean?

I never would have guessed that a Generation Z writer could write so succinctly and honestly about the Boomers. Yes, Boomers will probably hate this book. She selects 6 people whom she believes embody everything wrong with Boomerism. She does show some sympathy for a few of her devils. The tone is never derogatory. It is a rational and empirical take down of the beliefs and actions of these people. The death of truth in our society is probably a collective action of generations not just Boomers. Based on Andrews detailed analysis, it probably started with the Boomers' cognitive dissonance between their alleged good intentions and their actual reprehensible behavior. She actually made be feel a little sympathy for Steve Jobs and Al Sharpton.

She is a political writer but the book and characters are not overly political. While the 6 people are all conventional American left-wingers, politics is only discussed to demonstrate how they use it to get their way and weaken existing institutions.

Again Boomers will hate this book. Anyone else with an open mind will find it as a warning to do better with our intentions and help lessen our narcissism in the interest of future generations. She also demonstrated how OK Boomer may become a hate crime.

Do not miss this great read.

Extremely well researched and provocative with lots of great insights into the mentality of the boomers, the time in which they came to adulthood, and the character of the people profiled. Truly a must read.

Read this Book

If you were born after 1980, read this book and absorb its lessons. Lord knows that the boomers won't...

I enjoyed it because she got every page wrong

In the field of full disclosure, I need to admit up front that I am a Boomer and 74 years old. You may have known that when you heard me yelling and screaming as I listened to every page. How could Helen be so wrong? The answer to that is simple...Helen's inexperience cannot be hidden, and it shows up with every observation made in the book. Now, I have to admit that I did LIKE the book and feel she made some good points...but not enough of them to give the book five stars.

Helen admits she graduated in 2008. Whew...to be that young again. Although we live in "unusual times" they are not the defining ones other generations have gone through and that is why I was yelling and screaming. The book glazes over the generations and mixes achievements and failures from one into the next.

I am sorry Helen but Gloria Steinem was born in 1934 and is 88. I know the administration of Jack Kennedy was historic but again, Jack was not a Boomer even though he was young. What the book totally missed was the defining event of our time and that was the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1975. I spent two years in the jungle and was there at the peak of the war at 19 and trust me on this...it was a Rite of Passage like no other. When I came home and protested against the war my experience level was well ahead of my contemporaries. To this day I relive events from that saga. Yet the book missed it as a defining moment for our times.

What the book did not get was that the Boomers were not in charge in the 1960s. We were still too young. I was born in 1948 and even though I have five college degrees I was not in any real position of authority until the late 70s and wasn't really calling the shots until the late 80s.

What the book did get right was that...yes...I have to admit it...we screwed up a lot of things that we should have gotten right. Why didn't we? I think it was because by the time we were calling the shots, say in the 1980s, things had changed. Inflation was in the high teens, buying a car could be done with the stroke of a pen, buying a house was paramount, and finally raising kids was the prize. We sold out. The book got that correct. Did we do it on purpose? Probably. I know I did. I had the war record and educational background to have gone into politics so why didn't I? Because, alas, it was easier not to do it.

Hindsight is great. I can assure you Helen that you will learn this lesson just as all of the Boomers have. Was it Victor Hugo that said that "Youth is wasted on the young"? Well, one day when you are older you will re-read your book and wonder how you ever felt the way you did.

Some chapters were great, yet I can't believe how wrong you got it. I for one loved "The West Wing" series when it was on and even watched the entire thing again about five years ago. Was it idealistic? Helen...it was a story! It was a fictitious story about a fictitious presidency and yet you used it as an entire chapter for how the Boomers failed. Had you lived then you would have loved it even though I understand you are a Republican. It was a story of a White House that every American could relate with. Problems were discussed and reasoned with before action was taken to solve them. Hopefully, when your generation is in charge, heaven forbid, you will do better.

In the meantime, keep writing. I mean this seriously. You have some good thoughts and ideas. What you need now are two things: more experience with life and a broader perspective on history.

Yes, the Boomers could have done better. So, what is your generation going to do about it?

Yes

A creative way to document the recent history that governs our reality today, with interesting anecdotes.