Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation Is Remaking America

by Morley Winograd, Michael D. Hais

About every eight decades, coincident with the most stressful and perilous events in U.S. history—the Revolutionary and Civil Wars and the Great Depression and World War II—a new, positive, accomplished, and group-oriented “civic generation” emerges to change the course of history and remake America. The Millennial Generation (born 1982–2003) is America’s newest civic generation. In their 2008 book, Millennial Makeover , Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais made a prescient argument that the Millennial Generation would change American politics for good. Later that year, a huge surge of participation from young voters helped to launch Barack Obama into the White House. Now, in Millennial Momentum , Winograd and Hais investigate how the beliefs and practices of the Millennials are transforming other areas of American culture, from education to entertainment, from the workplace to the home, and from business to politics and government. The Millennials’ cooperative ethic and can-do spirit have only just begun to make their mark, and are likely to continue to reshape American values for decades to come. Drawing from an impressive array of demographic data, popular texts, and personal interviews, the authors show how the ethnically diverse, socially tolerant, and technologically fluent Millennials can help guide the United States to retain its leadership of the world community and the global marketplace. They also illustrate why this generation’s unique blend of civic idealism and savvy pragmatism will enable us to overcome the internal culture wars and institutional malaise currently plaguing the country. Millennial Momentum offers a message of hope for a deeply divided nation.

Genres: Nonfiction

296 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2011

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book I've read for a project on the millennial generation. It is hard to boil this down simply, except to say that Winograd and Hais see this newest, biggest generation as the future salvation of America in everything from politics to the economy to the arts.

Using much of the generational analysis originally developed by Neil Howe, they argue that the millennials are most similar to the WWII generation in being focused on collective action, and an idealism heavily laced with pragmatism. The authors believe that unlike the boomers, they are unlikely to get caught in idealistic, polarized standoffs as the boomers in Congress now do.

Politically, they say the millennials are the most liberal and Democratic of any recent generation, but also that they believe strongly in an active federal government, but one that should embrace a bottom up approach of letting citizens devise individualized programs and solutions to social problems.

The critique of this book might be that it is so optimistic about the character traits and future possibilities of millennials that it ignores any downsides. While many early news articles about millennials have focused on their narcissism, lack of worth ethic and desire to quickly be in charge in the workplace -- all of which may be gross exaggerations of generational trends -- it also seems to find almost no negatives among millennials. On top of that, the book deals very little with the lower income part of the millennial generation, except for its references to how more ethnically diverse this generation is.

Still, this book was worth it for the many ideas and examples it threw into the mix.

[Acurtis49 · Rating 5 out of 5]

People complain that this book is dense, but that is because it is a book based on research. More to the point it uses all of the research it is based on to communicate its point and what I believe is a very well structured and riveting description and explanation. Millennial Momentum opened my eyes to the possibilities that are unfolding before me in our current world and in the lives of the school students I've been teaching since 2003 and will continue to teach for the next several years.
Although I fall just outside the bounds of this generation, I do feel the tug of its sense of community, idealism, optimism, pragmatism, can-do spirit, and willingness to work for a better world. This book convinced me that the Millennials have the strength to deliver such a world to all of us.
But beware your perceptions: bad examples lurk in every generation and if you look for them you will see them everywhere. Look instead for the Millennials described in this book you will find them in equal if not greater numbers, operating in the ways described in this book. These ways are frequently confusing to the previous generation and it can take a bit of time to fully comprehend their strengths and potential.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title is a bit misleading. The content is repetitive and difficult to get through at times without falling asleep. Oh and there were several instances of missing words and punctuation errors. All that being said, I wasn't impressed with the book and I felt a bit duped. What I expected came nowhere near what I actually got from the book.

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really difficult to follow. A convoluted argument based mostly on others work. What exactly are these authors contributing to the conversation on the millennial generation? It's hard to say. Although they provide some interesting historical analysis and political analysis, the takeaway from it is minimal.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strong concept but unfortunately out of date, despite being just 11 years old. So many changes since 2011 and with covid and the strong emergency of Gen Z, this book feels like a snapshot versus a forecast, for lack of a better word.

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, cheerleaders!

While reading this book, I was cheering along about how great the millennial generation is going to be... already is being, in fact. And they are going to be in charge of everything soon enough (someday, people) and the task that is before them (the environment, the debt, the commitments across the globe, the... well, what haven't they been saddled with, really?) But afterwards, when I had time to think more about it, I realized that the authors were really writing as cheerleaders. I feel like the book is missing any critical thought. The book is written more as a cheer for these new young people, who are better than any young people that ever came along in the whole history of the world (especially that last batch), than as a weighing of pros and cons. There are always cons. Yeah, working together and optimism and technology and brand new ideas and confidence are all GREAT things (Gimme a "G!"), but...

vulnerability

Other positives to the book: I liked learning about the generation theory and especially how the civic generations in the past have handled their tribulations. Also, I learned a lot about the political (sausage) process. Plus it was good to see that my idea for implementing a true democracy rather than a representational form of government by harnessing the power of intercommunication and data sharing (described 2006) is becoming near-fetched at last.

Other negatives: I wasn't looking for a book about the politics of any generation, but there is a lot of that shoved between the covers of this book. Also, I would have thought that Generation X would have been an appropriate point of comparison more than the faded handful of times it was ever brought up... I mean, that generation is temporally nearby and all. Instead it was Boomers Boomers Boomers. Maybe it's not worth the risk of bringing the (tar-baby) attitude of Generation X too close to the word Millennials, lest some bad voodoo happen. Or maybe X still defies understanding??

I'm off to look for a different book about Millennials.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting thesis that each set of generations has a corresponding theme to previous sets of generations (generational cycles) (i.e. current "civic" millennials can be compared to "civic" GI generation which was instrumental in putting through the New Deal). Hence this is a possible way of predicting behavior of a group based on prior behaviors of corresponding groups.

After reading this I did feel that I understood the current events and trends better, particularly the importance of social media.

Possible objections which led me to consider 4 and 3 stars: Sometimes overwhelming data to the point of tediousness. Still it was important in order for them to justify their points, though I wonder if some of it could have been put in notes/appendix. Also, the general tenor of the book is for the millennials and sees them as a hero generation which could give some serious bias to their conclusions. Still, I found their information very useful.

[Jay Winters]

Don't let the cheesy cell phone and social media cover fool you about this book - it's a serious study of recent events in the history of the Millennial generation and how they compare to what has been prophesied about this generation by generational theorists like Strauss and Howe.

Winograd and Hais do an excellent job of tracking through events of the past decade to see how the Millennial generation is impacting American culture with sections on politics, entertainment, education, and the general functioning of this country. If you've reserved some skepticism of generational theory and what you've been told by the media about the Millennial generation, you should pick up this book and get a sense of recent history and how it works to help us understand this current dominant generation.

[Stacey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book about the Millennial Generation which I'm a part of. As an older Millennial I feel there are three subsets since we don't all come of age and the older Millennials discovered the Internet and technology growing up. It's the younger Millennials who have these technology since they were born. Here is the subsets I believe: Older Millennials (born between 1982-88), Middle Millennials (born between 1989-1995) and the Younger Millennials (born between 1996-2003).

[Duff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots and lots of information. I agree that some is repetitive, however, the concept of cyclical generations and how they function in our society was new to me and kept my interest. It is pretty wonky, so it would not be a light read for most folks. I liked it for the new information...and the hope it gave me in the next generation.

[Samuel Lubell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for book club. I liked it but agree with the book club that it assumed the reader already had some knowledge of previous works on generations. As a member of Generation X, I’m not sure I believe that the Millennials will be the hero generation who will save us all, but think the authors did identify some interesting trends.

[JR Hassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated all the data and insights into this generation. I consider it a must read for every small business owner that hasn't thought about what the change in retailing means and what it could and should mean to them.
The information has helped us restructure what lines we offer and price-points. The store has continued to improve because of those changes.
Well worth your time.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got a lot out of the first third of the book, especially about the cyclical nature of generations. But after that it got repetitive, wonky, and boring. Didn't finish it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting, well written and well documented.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly about politics, but I enjoyed the chapters on how Millenials will change business in the future and their lifestyles. It gave me new hope!

[Patricia Snell Herzog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book about Millennials and community engagement. A great way to think about changes to organizations as Millennials assume leadership roles.