GENERATIONS AND GLOBAL CHANGE

This comment, occasioned by ''A Generational Explanation of Long-term Billow-like Dynamics of Societal Processes,'' by Carlos A. Mallmann an d Guillermo A. Lemarchand, will address three specific questions: (1) what are the processes that are being explained; (2) does the concept of generation help to explain these processes, and what exactly is the length of ''generational time'' that is appropriate to that explanati on; and (3) how good is that explanation, and what might be the role o f generations in global evolutionary processes? (C) 1998 Elsevier Scie nce Inc.