The American High (First Turning, 1946–1964) witnessed America’s ascendancy as a global superpower. Social movements stalled. The middle class grew and prospered. Churches buttressed government. Huge peacetime defense budgets were uncontroversial. Mass tastes thrived atop a collectivist infrastructure of suburbs, interstates, and regulated communication. Declaring “an end to ideology,” respected authorities presided over a bland, modernist, and spiritually-dead culture.

• Lost entering elderhood
• G.I.s entering midlife
• Silent entering young adulthood
• Boomers entering childhood