This chapter explores what is at stake in adopting a generational lens to study politics, especially national politics, drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt. First, adopting an Arendtian perspective suggests that we misunderstand generations if we view them as an automatic process. Generations do not emerge without humans deciding there is something there to talk about, and without particular voices shaping the narrative. Second, as the collective counterpart to birth, generations contribute to the irreducible plurality of the world and for this reason are fundamental to freedom. Third, the conditions for intergenerational politics have shifted from inheritance to recovery. If something survives today, it is because present generations have salvaged it. Such perspective has implications for the study of nationalism and nation-states.