Hair (1968), with book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado, is considered to be the youth anthem of the 1960s, just as Rent is considered to be an expression of the 1990s. The play is a rock musical that communicates the attitudes and behavior of young Americans who became caught up in the counterculture atmosphere of the age.

Bright Lights, Big City (1984), by Jay McInerney, chronicles the lives of young New Yorkers who have become caught up in the corporate world and subsequently discover the meaninglessness of their existence.

James Joyce's classic coming-of-age novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1925) follows a young Dublin man's quest for artistic expression.

AIDS in the Twenty-First Century: Disease and Globalization, by Tony Barnett and Alan Whiteside (2002), provides a detailed study of how the disease has spread not only in...