ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the second wave of the Boomers unlike the epic generations they too lacked any significant historical task and unlike the first wave were largely unable to develop, since the groundwork of social and cultural change had already been set in train. Fresh contacts arose for some second wave Boomers by virtue of the restructuring of labour markets and anti-consumption sentiment which developed. The social situation which the second wave of Boomers encountered was one of a de-industrialising, disorganised characterised by a neo-liberalism and the decline in the post-war consensus. Adulthood for the Boomers was to be carved out under the changing conditions of a globalising, and in the terms of Giddens, Bauman, and Beck, a detraditionalising, liquefying, risk society. Globalisation, deregulation, and a shift in the political ground unfolded with intense struggles over the relations of class, race, gender and sexuality, and these leant a special flavour to the intellectual and political battles of the second wave.
