Rhodes (Southeast Missouri State Univ.) examines how the political, social, and cultural changes during the long sixties (1961 to 1973) shaped the lives of a hitherto unidentified generational cohort--the 57.5 million preadolescent children born between 1956 and 1970--and influenced them as adults. The book is arranged chronologically, with chapters on the idealistic presidency of John F. Kennedy, the early years of the space race, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy's assassination, the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson, the African American struggle for civil rights, the Vietnam War, the hippie lifestyle, and the social changes in women's lives. For primary source evidence, Rhodes relies heavily on 400 self-selected adult oral histories and young letter writers to the Kennedy and Johnson presidential libraries. Contrary to Rhodes's methodology, however, memory is not monolithic; there are always competing perspectives, evolving over time, which he fails to account for. The author's tendency to universalize the children's testimony and the adults' oral history, coupled with his failure to discuss countervailing class, gender, and race perspectives among his preadolescent cohort, render this study more suggestive than conclusive. Nonetheless, by combining the experiences of late baby boomers and early Gen X-ers, Rhodes has opened a promising arena for future research. Summing Up: Recommended. All academic levels/libraries. --E. Wayne Carp, Pacific Lutheran University