Review: The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, by Philip Bump

With The Aftermath, Philip Bump marshals a sea of statistics to debunk myths about that big, self-involved and endlessly discussed postwar generation.

THE AFTERMATH: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America, by Philip Bump

Baby boomers, a reputedly upbeat lot, are probably not considering whether there will be enough space to inter them after theyve all died. Philip Bump, cynical Gen Xer, goes right there and then some.

In his new book, The Aftermath, which considers the socioeconomic and political impact of Americas noisiest if no longer largest living generation, Bump measures the average coffin, multiplies its dimensions by the number of surviving people born in the United States between 1946 and 1964 74 millionish and figures their corpses can be squeezed into 43 square miles. We could simply take all of the land thats part of the Walt Disney World complex and convert it into the most densely packed cemetery in North America, he suggests. The Grievingest Place on Earth.