The seeds of today’s disorientation were planted decades ago. The book starts by exploring what are regarded as the glorious decades of the 1950s and 1960s, which featured the fastest-ever productivity growth, the creation of the greatest-ever middle class, steep declines in inequalities, unimaginable improvements in healthcare and life expectancy, and an equally dramatic change in lifestyle and educational opportunities. But there was also a dark and menacing side, and the book shines light on crevasses and ravines that were deepening and broadening underneath what appeared to be placid and content societies. By the late 1960s, these contradictions could no longer be contained or bridged, breaking out in violence while also powering the next revolution – the rise of the Baby Boomer generation.
