by Claire O'Neill

If Tom Brokaw is right, the "Greatest Generation" of Americans is now rather aged. That doesn't exactly bode well for today's youth. We've reached the end of the alphabet with "Generation Z," and some are calling the current demographic of 18-to-24-year-olds "the first-wave Millennials." It's this age group that provides the scope and focus of a new book, American Youth.

They are still in early adulthood, and already they have been smeared by their elders as a super-race of spoiled cry-babies and fashionable zombies, plugged into the virtual unreality of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, BlackBerry, Blu-Ray, Bluetooth, PlayStation 2, Wii, Xbox 360, the iPod, iPhone, iBook, etc.

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Clearly, though, this generation is much more complex and should not be reduced to tech-savvy, conspicuous consumers. Which is why the photographers of Redux Pictures have teamed up to take a closer look. Be it Iraq war widows, Navajo gang members, debutantes or college partiers, the young people in this book together form a panoramic portrait of what it means to be young in America. With a wide range of images from 25 photographers, American Youth raises the question: How are today's youth both different from and exactly the same as generations past?