The bulging cohort of so-called baby boomers born after World War II created a distinctive and very international youth culture, which brought remarkable changes to postwar youth roles and lifestyles. That youth culture was rooted in fashions and musical tastes that set them apart from their elders and fueled anxious comments about a growing “generation gap.”

Youth styles in the United States often provided inspiration for movements in Europe, and American jazz and rock ’n’ roll spread rapidly in western Europe. American musicians such as Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and His Comets, and Gene Vincent thrilled youths and worried parents, teachers, and politicians.

Youths played a key role in the consumer revolution. Marketing experts and manufacturers quickly recognized that the young people had money to spend due to postwar prosperity. An array of advertisements and products consciously targeted the youth market. As the baby boomers entered their late teens, they eagerly purchased trendy clothing and the latest pop music hits, as well as record players, transistor radios, magazines, hair products, and makeup, all marketed for the “young generation.”

The postwar decades saw rapid growth in the number of universities and college students. In 1950, only 3 to 4 percent of western European youths went on to higher education; numbers in the United States were only slightly higher. Then, as government subsidies made education more affordable to ordinary people, enrollments skyrocketed. By 1960, at least three times more European students attended some kind of university than young people had before World War II, and the number continued to rise sharply until the 1970s.

The rapid expansion of higher education opened new opportunities for the middle and lower classes, but it also made for overcrowded classrooms. Many students felt that they were not getting the kind of education they needed for jobs in the modern world. At the same time, some reflective students feared that universities were doing nothing but turning out docile technocrats both to stock and to serve “the establishment.” Thus it was no coincidence that students became leaders in a counterculture that attacked the ideals of the affluent society of the postwar world and shocked the West in the late 1960s.