Read an exclusive excerpt.

“Perceptive and informative...This is the rare sociological study that manages to inspire.”

— Publishers Weekly

From the Director of Polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, an exploration of Gen Z the events that have shaped them, and what it means for America and our future.

September 11. The war on terror. Hurricane Katrina. The 2008 financial crisis. The housing crisis. The opioid epidemic. Mass school shootings. Climate change. Racial injustice. The whiplash between the election of the first Black president and Donald Trump. COVID-19.

Generation Z (also known as “Zoomers”) — those born from the late 1990s to early 2000s — has been faced with an onslaught of turmoil, destruction, and instability unprecedented in modern history. And it shows: They are more stressed, anxious, and depressed than previous generations, a phenomenon John Della Volpe has documented extensively through decades of interviews and meetings with young Americans across the country.

But Gen Z has not buckled under this tremendous weight. On the contrary, they have organized around the issues America has left unsolved, from gun control to racial and environmental justice to economic inequality, becoming more politically engaged than their elders were at their age and showing a unique willingness to disrupt the status quo.

In Fight, Della Volpe draws on his vast experience to show the largest forces shaping Zoomers’ lives, the issues they care most about, and how they are — despite older Americans’ efforts to label Gen Z as overly sensitive, lazy, and entitled — rising to the unique challenges of their time to take control of their country and our future.