A fascinating debate. I know it's a bit off-topic for the books section but hopefully our benevolent moderators will indulge us a bit longer. For me, exploring the 80s with the supposed wisdom of middle-age is not about nostalgia or a longing to re-live times past. I love being 53 and the kind of guy I've turned out to be. I wouldn't go back to those days even if I could. No, it (and the book) is about looking back to make sense of our formative years and the extent to which those experiences contributed to who we became. Now that does interest me. In a recent interview, I described this notion as human terroir - that is to say, the way in which we are all the product of time and place. So I personally see value in analysing the past to help me better understand who I am in the present. The seeds of my exemplary taste in modern music today were sown during my musical education in the 1980s! As were the seeds of my drink problem 
I contend that Henry Ford was spectacularly way off the mark in this regard when, a hundred years ago, he famously remarked that, "History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today." Great cars, Hal, but rubbish philosophy
Maybe it's stretching the debate a bit, but an old saying goes: "People who don't know their own history is condemned to repeat it". It doesn't apply here squarely but I get what Andy means, weighing the past to make sense of the present. Henry Ford words are wrong,
IMO, he was more of an action man than a thinker (just like most original mods, or teenagers for that matter).
I disagree with Andy in his "nostalgia" assesment. No matter your intents, Andy, I reckon "Mod Ghosts" will be a source of nostalgia for many readers. Call it a "collateral effect" and forget about it, you've done your work well.
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) taste, but this caught my eye:
Not for me, Mike, but as long as it floats your boat that's what counts
