As the baby boomers neared retirement at the turn of the twentieth century, attention focused on what the future might look like for both them and succeeding generations. Public discourse about boomers often depicts them as a selfish and narcissistic generation that have benefitted from the largesse of the modern welfare state yet seem intent on denying those benefits to their children and grandchildren. Millennials have similarly been condemned as a ‘snowflake’ generation unwilling to accept the responsibilities of full-blown adulthood, though, unlike the boomers, they have experienced the negative effects of late capitalism, such as job insecurity, student debt and housing unaffordability. Sometimes disparities between boomers and millennials have been seen as producing a ‘generations war’. However, using generation as shorthand for what are often more complex issues suffers ‘generationalism’ insofar as it belies intragenerational heterogeneity, among other things. Drawing on sociological conceptions of generation, it is an aim of this article, and the contributions contained in this Special Section, to explore the veracity of claims made around generations, ‘generations at war’ and the legacies of baby boomers.

随着婴儿潮一代在20世纪之交即将退休，人们的注意力集中在他们及其后代的未来上。关于婴儿潮一代的公开话语通常将他们描述为自私自恋的一代，他们从现代福利国家的大量收益中受益，但似乎打算拒绝给其子孙后代带来好处。千禧一代同样被谴责为不愿意接受成年成年的责任的“雪花”一代，尽管与婴儿潮一代不同，他们经历了晚期资本主义的负面影响，例如工作不安全感，学生债务和住房负担能力不足。有时，婴儿潮一代和千禧一代之间的差距被视为引发了“世代战争”。然而，就其他通常较为复杂的问题而言，使用世代作简写就遭受了“世代论”的困扰，因为它掩盖了世代异质性。借鉴代际的社会学概念，本文的目的以及本节的内容是探讨代代相传，“战争代代”和婴儿潮一代的遗产的真实性。