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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Time to Murder and Create", 13 Aug 2007
This book is much more than a mere enquiry into the origins of youth culture - it is actually a quite detailed and absorbing historical account of what young people (in Western Europe and the USA) have experienced as the world underwent two big wars, a great economic crash, and several ideological experiments (from communism to fascism to "consumerism").
There seems to be an underlying question throughout Savage's quite detailed (and carefully researched) chronicle of youth from the mid-19th century to 1945: what happens when you have a) an economic system that needs to continually develop and expand in order to keep functioning (what we can summarize as "industrial society" or "capitalism"); and b) an oversupply of individuals who have to be organized in accordance with that system's necessities/aims (what we call "the mass")? The answer: you make youth, the most volatile and vigorous social cohort, instrumental - the pivotal point around which society defines (and renews) itself.
Savage shows how from their organization around schools, factories and all kinds of diversions in times of peace, to their incorporation into armies in times of war, young people in industrial societies have been exposed to several more or less successful experiments in the complicated art of social management. Thus their energies were either channelled into productive and leisurely activities when the system of industrial production was focused on commercial expansion (developing a stunning variety of mass entertainments, fashion industries, etc) - or they were used as a violently destructive force when the system was concerned with geopolitical expansion (most clearly visible in WWI and WWII). The main problem being that, malleable as a mass or group might seem, it often engages in pursuits that may not coincide with the industrial system's "best interests". Hence the history of the management of youth has been fraught with conflicts and clashes, as youth groups (sometimes of considerable sizes) challenged or outright rejected the roles society tried to impose on them: whether as workers/consumers or as soldiers.
It is this problem which Savage addresses in his book, following youth's attempts to define itself as "independent" from adult society and its expectations, while simultaneously being exposed to ever more sophisticated laws and social measures determining its rights and obligations. Many of the most impressive cultural innovations came out of this friction.
An interesting aspect in this conflict between young people and adult society is the generational rhetoric that became common after the French Revolution. Again and again, the "new generation" (or actually a loud minority in it) defines itself as radically different, even opposed to its predecessors, and announces a glorious future, when the young will finally take over and correct the mistakes of the past. Using countless examples (from the decadents and nihilists, through the "lost generation" and "bright young people" and Hitler Youth, to less well-known subcultures such as the Wandervogel, the zazous and the zoot-suiters), Savage makes visible how much also the generational dynamics are determined by the stunningly fast pace of industrial developments and cultural evolution, making uncertainty and anxiety the main driving force in society - which youth incorporates best, in all its (biologically determined) eagerness and energy. No wonder the young have been adopted as symbols of (a nation's or an ideology's) future.
With an astounding array of theoretical models, cultural references (literature, music, film) and biographical accounts, Savage thus presents a gripping portrait of Western culture from the perspective of its most challenging and inspiring cohort, which persistently holds the threat of annihilation as well as the promise of regeneration. All the more interesting that the term resulting from this 100 years adventure - "teenage" - put so much emphasis on pleasure and leisure, and so little on the less cheering side of being an adolescent in times of accelerated change. As the second half of the 20th century would prove, though, "teen spirit" has the potential of causing (at least a bit of) chaos. And with the uncertainties and crises of the 21st century already looming in the horizon, one can surmise that new and just as surprising "revolutionary" or "destructive" youth formations will arise as a reaction to further shifts in the (now global) industrial system.
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