BEGINNING in 1875, Jon Savage shows there was indeed teenage life before the rock'n'roll era and by ending his tale at the climax of the Second World War, before the myths of ancient grease kick in, he avoids a further muddying of welltrodden ground. By leaving off just where conventional accounts start, he ensures that, far from being overtaken by each unfolding twist in the teenage tale, this book will continue to cast light on future developments.

To say that this tale carries an epic sweep is an understatement.

There is suffering amid the Depression, in the trenches and during the Holocaust, and heroism in the use of jazz and sartorial outrage to defy Nazism in Occupied France and Hitler's Germany. And there are as many manifestations of angst and frivolity, those timehonoured poles of teenage attraction, as could be found in an age when teenagers were not courted by corporate capitalism, and were effectively denied a voice until they matured sufficiently to have forgotten why they wanted one in the first place.

Teenage is exhaustive, occasionally exhausting, but above all a supremely thorough, assured, affecting and involving work which makes no reference to rock'n'roll or anybody connected with it, but still smells like teen spirit.