Jerry Lembke had an article in SCIENCE & SOCIETY about 15 years ago in
which he linked generations to long waves. He was talking specifically
about working-class generations, but it could be generalized.
One problem with the theory is that in-migragion (and out-migration)
can mess up the meaning of "generations" for any given country.
Yeah, I was going to mention Lembke's article, which I really liked because it developed the same thesis I had arrived at 10 years before. Ironically, I had written an inquiry to Science and Society when I wrote my paper inquiring about publication and had received a rather rude letter back denouncing me for presuming to deal in "epochs".
Generations, like "epochs", is admittedly a loose concept. Any attempt to define a generation will become circular. Even aside from migration, reproduction is a continuous and not a batch process. In defense of generation, though, it's no more analytically nebulous than other collectivities like "nation", "race", "society", "sector" or "economy", it's just that through usage the latter concepts have come to seem to have more stable conventional meanings.
--
Sandwichman
