Savage, acclaimed historian of the English punk movement ("England's Dreaming"), traces the roots of the teenager as an icon. Delving into film, music, literature, diaries, fashion, and art, Savage documents youth culture's development as a commodity and an industry from the turn of the last century through 1945.
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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The Onion A.V. Club Michaelangelo Matos
Teenage isn't simply a music book. It's Savage's claim to being a great historian, and it's mighty convincing.
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Favorable
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Los Angeles Times Mark Coleman
Well-researched, readable.
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Favorable
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Booklist Brendan Driscoll
An enlightening and serious analysis of modernity itself, as nuanced as it is ambitious. [15 Feb 2007, p.19]
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Favorable
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The New York Times Book Review Camille Paglia
Once it gets going, Teenage becomes compulsive reading...A rich, rewarding book that makes an important contribution to cultural history.
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Favorable
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Daily Telegraph Andy Miller
Teenage is both a vital, wide-ranging, genre-defying read and a timely reminder that teenagers are not just our future, but also our past and inescapable present; we are willing exiles in Neverland.
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Favorable
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The Guardian Andy Beckett
Savage has produced a book that may well change how people think about teenagers - and prompt other youth culture writers to embark on revisionist epics of their own.
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Favorable
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The Independent Charles Shaar Murray
He rises to the occasion with massive aplomb, often finding uncanny parallels in the unfolding of events: such as the synchronicity, in the early 20th century, of JM Barrie's creation of Peter Pan and Baden Powell's founding of the Boy Scouts.
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Mixed
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The Independent Mark Simpson
Savage's book drags for much of the first half like a triple history class on a hot summer's day, and doesn't pick up speed until between the wars when the first "modern" kind of youth culture begins to emerge, with drink, drugs, sex, flappers and frantic dancing.
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Mixed
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Library Journal Jennifer Zarr
An enjoyable read for history buffs, but while he claims to see it as a work of popular history, at over 500 fairly dense pages it is recommended primarily for academic and large public libraries. [15 March 2007, p.84]
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Mixed
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The Observer Andrew Anthony
If the breadth of research is admirable, there is sometimes a sense of history in search of a unifying argument...Like his subject, Savage may not always know exactly what he's trying to say, but his bristling passion and sheer eloquence ensure he's worth listening to.
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Mixed
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Boston Globe Glenn C. Altschuler
Sprawling, episodic, and sometimes thematically muddled. But Savage has a keen instinct for the apt anecdote and the encapsulating quotation.
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Unfavorable
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Publishers Weekly
While individual anecdotes carry some verve, the writing never fully sheds its dry academic tone. [22 Jan 2007, p.176]
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Unfavorable
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New York Observer Charles Taylor
A major disappointment. Both too much and not enough, the book is clearly the result of a prodigious amount of research. What it’s lacking is the unifying narrative linking all the byways and ratholes that England’s Dreaming ventured into. It’s simply not clear what story Mr. Savage intends to tell here.
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