A history of teen culture documents how its twentieth-century foundations were established in the urban youth cultures of America and Europe during the 1890s, in a social analysis that draws on a large body of written work and considers such influences as Peter Pan, Oscar Wilde, and Anne Frank. Savage's highly acclaimed history of the English punk movement ( England's Dreaming, 1991) won praise for its enthusiastic yet penetrating portrayal of the anarchic Sex Pistols and the culture of frustration that fueled them. His latest book searches for the sources of youth culture, the "living in the now, pleasure-seeking, product-hungry" global phenomenon that both defines and is defined by consumerism. Reminding us that youth culture existed long before the 1950s--as demonstrated by Rimbaud, Wilde, and Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, as well as Barrie's Peter Pan-- Savage chronicles the fitful evolution of our understanding of adolescence as well as the changing (and unchanging) activities of teenagers in the early twentieth century. As with his previous work, the author adeptly situates pop-culture trends within broader cultural shifts: the relationship between youth-icon Rudolph Valentino and changing sexual mores, for example. In doing so, however, Savage pays particular and lengthy attention to war's ability to separate generations as well as to crush and/or heighten the manic impulses of youth. The result is an enlightening and serious analysis of modernity itself, as nuanced as it is ambitious. Brendan Driscoll Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Teenage is a funny, moving and startling book. Jon Savage has an artist's way with unexpected detail and chronological coincidence, and a historian's sense of accident and inevitability. Jon Savage turns a story I thought I already knew into something altogether stranger and more inspiring. -- Simon Frith, author of Sound Effects and Performing Rites Teenage is the definitive history of youth in revolt, from the gaslight age to the dawn of rock. Jon Savage captures the hell and adventure of adolescence with stunning detail and the thrilling force of the first Ramones album. -- David Fricke, Rolling Stone A remarkable exploration of what it meant and how it felt to be young in the early modern era. -- Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys Jon Savage cunningly tracks the Tortured Teen from Young Werther, Dorian Gray and Peter Pan to Rupert Brooke, Dada and jitterbugs, handily proving there were many, many rebels before James Dean. He also imparts a deep sense of horror and outrage at how over a century a complacent establishment routinely sent and sends the young out to die. -- Mark O'Donnell, Tony-award winning author of Hairspray: The Musical Savage writes with great lyrical exuberance and passion---much like the youthful subjects he describes. The young lives presented in Teenage blast through reified post-war mythologies to reveal youth as an ongoing potent, volatile, dynamic social force. By shining a neon light on the secret histories of young people, Savage joins with cultural historians Natalie Davis and John Gillis, restoring the integrity and dignity of all young people, past and present. -- Donna Gaines, Sociologist and author of Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids This carefully researched and beautifully written book reveals that the cultural and psychological phenomenon in which adolescent rebellion helps reinvent societies pre-dated Elvis by at least a hundred years. Synthesized over the course of numerous generations, Savage's observations put into perspective today's 'adolescent issues' and how the rest of us respond and should respond to them. -- Danny Goldberg, author of How The Left Lost Teen Spirit , and former CEO, Air America Radio, Mercury Records, Warner Brother Records, and Atlantic Records Jon Savage is the author of the celebrated England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond , winner of Rolling Stone ’s prestigious Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award. He has written widely for American and British newspapers and magazines on music, pop culture, and social history. Used Book in Good Condition