1882 links FDR to Churchill instead of to a bunch of gangsters, fascist and Nazi war criminals, and Stalinist functionaries or satraps -- and puts FDR in a generation more known for principle than for pragmatism. Maybe if Obama rates as one of the greatest Presidents ever he gets his birth-year reclassified as a "Boomer" year. Howe and Strauss recognize the early wave of Generation X as one of the most troubled waves of kids ever -- drug use, alcoholism, criminal arrests, and low achievements in education -- and for rejecting Boomer mass culture.
That's rather absurd. Just because Stalin and Hitler were born during those years doesn't mean you can just write off artists and poets and activists and philanthropists and inventors also born during the same time.
