There is a roughly 80-year cycle of crisis, rebirth, growth and collapse that reliably predicts periods of stability and chaos in the prevailing world order. If your BS detector tells you to dismiss this as woo-woo lunacy, then it's time to adjust your BS detector. Strauss and Howe's generational theory of recurring cycles in history not only reliably "hindcasts" the previous crises and defining events in American history, but their 1997 prediction that the early 2000s would see the country enter a new cycle of unravelling culminating in a 2020s crisis is unfolding with uncanny accuracy. This should not be surprising; there is nothing mystical about this theory. The observation of the stages of life that each generation is in during each major crisis and how this influences their behaviour in future stages of life is just common sense once it is laid out, and helps us to understand why these cycles recur so predictably. Yes, the authors' prediction of the specific form the crisis would take during our era sounds ridiculous in hindsight, but this nonetheless remains a very important book for students of history and those seeking to understand how we arrived at this moment of crisis. ~ James Corbett
William Strauss and Neil Howe will change the way you see the world—and your place in it. With blazing originality, The Fourth Turning illuminates the past, explains the present, and reimagines the future. Most remarkably, it offers an utterly persuasive prophecy about how America’s past will predict its future.
Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history. The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four eras—or "turnings"—that last about twenty years and that always arrive in the same order. In The Fourth Turning, the authors illustrate these cycles using a brilliant analysis of the post-World War II period.
First comes a High, a period of confident expansion as a new order takes root after the old has been swept away. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion against the now-established order. Then comes an Unraveling, an increasingly troubled era in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis—the Fourth Turning—when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history. Together, the four turnings comprise history's seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth.
The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for America’s next rendezvous with destiny.
