Overview

Vanguards and Followers is the first thorough attempt to explore the long history of youth as a community in competition with adult society. Louis Filler examines the question: what is the tradition connecting Randolph Bourne with Abbie Hoffman, Adah Menken with Joan Baez, or Vachel Lindsay with Bob Dylan? He looks back to the fundamental social, economic, and cultural conditions that created opportunities for youthful expression. The first part of the book is an analysis of early dissident activities from the seventeenth century to World War II. He shows that youth movements were a part of American society almost from its beginnings. The second part of the book centers on the quarter century after the war. Filler examines the postwar climate that helped stimulate the youth eruption. Vanguards and Followers will appeal to a wide audience, including sociologists, cultural historians, and philosophers.

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9781560008170

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Reviews

Candid and humane, Louis Filler writes of the rising generation in America with historical perspective and moral imagination. There has been no previous book of this scope and penetration. </p> --Russell Kirk</p> A solid, honest, historical study of the American 'youth tradition' that puts it in its proper perspective, assesses its past and future, and punctures a few balloons on the way. </p> --Russel B. Nye, Michigan State University</p> [C]ontains fascinating cameos of people who have been on the cutting edge of movement and thought in history. Mr. Filler has the dynamic footage of history run by rapidly but with clarity and insight. </p> --Ray B. Browne, Bowling Green State University</p> Filler's unique perspective forces readers to cut through popular (and often unexamined) media and academic premises to come to terms with their own feelings. </p> --David P. Thelen, editor, <em>Journal of American History</em></p>

Candid and humane, Louis Filler writes of the rising generation in America with historical perspective and moral imagination. There has been no previous book of this scope and penetration. --Russell Kirk A solid, honest, historical study of the American 'youth tradition' that puts it in its proper perspective, assesses its past and future, and punctures a few balloons on the way. --Russel B. Nye, Michigan State University [C]ontains fascinating cameos of people who have been on the cutting edge of movement and thought in history. Mr. Filler has the dynamic footage of history run by rapidly but with clarity and insight. --Ray B. Browne, Bowling Green State University Filler's unique perspective forces readers to cut through popular (and often unexamined) media and academic premises to come to terms with their own feelings. --David P. Thelen, editor, Journal of American History

Author Information

Louis Filler (1911-1998) was a Fulbright fellow at the University of Bristol and taught as a visiting professor in literature and history departments from the City University of New York to the University of California, San Francisco. His books include the classic Muckrakers, best-selling Crusade Against Slavery, Dictionary of American Social Reform, Unknown, Edwin Markham, Dictionary of American Conservatism, Vanguards and Followers, Distinguished Shades: Americans Whose Lives Live On, and Abolition and Social Justice in the Era of Reform, among many others, as well as biographies of Randolph Bourne and David Graham Phillips.

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