The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny

After many instances of prodding from readers, I finally bought and read The Fourth Turning, and I'm sorry that I waited so long. It was a superb read, and it puts into words (340 pages of words, in fact) the general feeling I've had for so long that something big and bad is happening all around us. I want to emphasize at the outset that this isn't some doom 'n' gloom book that came off the presses after all the calamities we've seen over the past decade. It is, in fact, a fifteen-year old book, and I imagine much of it was written around 1995 or so, during the feel-good Clinton years. When the book came out in 1997, the authors made clear that they were currently in the Third Turning, and that the Fourth Turning - the final quarter of a cycle that they postulate recurs throughout modern human history - was coming around 2005 or so. Strauss and Howe write: Over the past five centuries, Anglo-American society has entered a new era - a turning - every two decades or so....Together the four turnings of the saeculum comprise history's seasonal rhythm of growth, naturation, entropy, and destruction: + The First Turning is a High; an upbeat era of strengthening instutitions and weakening individualism; + The Second Turning is an Awakening, a passionate era of spirtual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime; + The Third Turning is an Unraveling, a downcast era of strrengtening individualism and weakening institutions; + The Fourth Turning is a Crisis, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one. As they anticipated the next "Turning", they referenced its start point around 2005, in the middle of the "Oh-Oh" decade (which I've now heard referred to as the "Naughts"): The next Fourth Turning is due to begin shortly after the new millenium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood...Political and economic trust will implode...severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire...the very survival of the nation will feel at stake. Sometime before the year 2025, America will pass through a great gate in history, commensurate with the American Revolution, Civil War, and twin emergencies of the Great Depression and World War II. I would suggest, and I'm sure many would agree, that the attacks of 9/11 were the "sudden spark". Early in the book, the authors describe how there have, through human history, been three general ideas about the path of time in our lives - chaotic, cyclical, linear. The entire basis of the book is that the cyclical perception of the world is the accurate one, and the human species continues to move its way through this quartet of cycles, totalling about the length of a human life, called a Saeculum. We are presently in The Millennial Saeculum, which is broken down into these four parts: + The American High (1946-1964); + The Consciousness Revolution (1964-1984); + The Culture Wars (1984-2005?); + The Millennial Crisis (which, when the book was published, was yet to arrive) If you consider the four quarters of a Saeculum to the time "axis" of the grid, the other is made of the human archetypes, whose character depends on their generation as well as what portion of the Saeculum is currently running. The present archetypes are described as follows: + The Boom Generation (Prophet archetype, born 1943-1960); + The 13th Generation (Nomad archetype, born 1961-1981); + The Millennial Generation (Hero archetype, born 1982-?); + The Artist archetype is being born now I'm a member of what they dub the 13th Generation, so-called simply because it is the 13th generation of Americans that they track. Many of the predictions about the near-future that were offered are eerily accurate, whereas others are embarassingly wrong, such as the supposition that, to celebrate the year 2000, "Others will board a chartered Concorde just after midnight and zoom back through time from the third millennium to the second." Of course, I can't fault the authors for not anticipating the fiery end of the Concorde fleet! I am, of course, most interested in the Crisis era, since that is supposedly what we're in the midst of living; the authors declare the Crisis can be constructed with this morphology: + A Crisis era begins with a catalyst - a startling event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood + Once catalyzed, a society achieves a regeneracy - a new counter-entropy that reunifies and reenergizes civic life. + The regenerated society propels toward a climax - a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and birth of the new. + The climax culminates in a resolution - a triumphant or tragic conclusion that separates the winners from losers, resolves the big public questions, and establishes the new order Here again, I would think most would agree the 9/11 attacks would serve the definition of "catalyst" quite well. As the book draws to a close, it delves into greater detail about what could be forthcoming from the perspective of someone writing in 1997. I've emphasized a few items in bold: Sometime around the year 2005, perhaps a few years before or after, America will enter the Fourth Turning.....a spark will ignite a new mood...In retrospect, the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, or as trivial as a Tea Party......the following circa-2005 scenarios might seem plausible: + A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft and announces it possesses portable nuclear weapons......Congress declares war.....Opponents charge that the president concocted the emergency for political purposes. + An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The President and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown.....Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics. As superb as these projections were, the authors hasten to add - ironically - "It's highly unlikely that any one of these scenarios will actually happen." On the contrary, these guesses about the future (which, let's face it, required the authors to really go out on a limb) were excellent. They continue (although I am using ellipses to replace large chunks of text, since I'm not in the mood to re-type an entire book): Time will pass, perhaps another decade, before the surging mood propels America to the Fourth Turning's grave moment of opportunity and danger: the climax of the Crisis.....the molten ingredients of the climax, which could include the following: + Economic distress, with public debt in default, entitlement trust funds in bankruptcy, mounting poverty and unemployment, trade wars, collapsing financial markets, and hyperinflation (or deflation) + Social distress.... + Cultural distress...... + Technology distress, with cryptoanarchy, high-tech oligarchy, and biogenetic chaos + Ecological distress.... + Political distress.... + Military distress....... This is a thoughtful, well-articulated, and engrossing book. As with any text that makes broad sociological assertions and generalizations, the authors have opened themselves up to plenty of criticism about the plausibility of their prophecy. Taken as a whole, I think this book provide an enlightening blueprint of both the present and the near-future. I strongly recommend it.

History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes. College professors have been complaining about how dumb students are, for at least as far back as Plato (and I’m sure this was old hat even then). If we really were getting dumber every generation, you’d think we would have devolved into slime molds by now. But we haven’t. The answer to this seeming paradox is simple: history is not linear but cyclic. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe divide history into saecula, each saeculum lasting about eighty to a hundred years – roughly the length of a long human life. Each saeculum is divided into four turnings, each one corresponding to one of the four seasons: winter, spring, summer, and fall. The first turning is a Crisis – corresponding to Winter. The generation that comes of age during a crisis the authors call "Heroes" (e.g., the “Greatest Generation” that won World War Two). The Crisis is followed by a High – corresponding to Spring. This is a time of consensus, conformity, growth, and wealth creation, The last high was roughly the period between the end of World War Two and the assassination of Jack Kennedy – comprising the childhood of the Baby Boomers. The generation that comes of age during a high the authors call “Artists” (although I think “Builders” would have been a better term). This was the so-called “Silent Generation.” The High is followed by an Awakening – corresponding to Summer. This is a time of individuality, questioning, dissent, and collapsing boundaries. The last Awakening began around 1964, around the time the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley began. The generation that comes of age during this period the author calls "Prophets." This was the Baby Boomer generation. The Awakening is followed by an Unraveling – corresponding to Fall. This is a time of harvest, but also of scattering – typified by Gordon Gecko’s proclamation that “Greed is Good,” and also typified by a restlessness that leads many to wander the world instead of settling down and raising families of our own. The generation that comes of age during this period the authors call "Nomads." And the Unraveling is followed by another Crisis. If the author’s theory is correct, then we already are overdue for another Crisis. Or maybe it has already began, with the COVID-19 pandemic and the exploitation of that pandemic by our rulers to launch an all-out assault on human society. As I write these words, we have a terrible war in Ukraine, a terrible war in Gaza, a terrible war in Syria, and we are on the brink of war in the Korean peninsula and also in Taiwan – and any one of these conflicts could go nuclear. And even though we are now on the brink of another Crisis (or maybe we’ve already gone over the edge) there is hope and comfort in the authors’ message. There is nothing to be gained by judging your accomplishments by those of your parents at the same age, because they came of age in a different world than you did. And since history is cyclic, no problem can ever be regarded as finally and completely solved – in fact, every solution brings new problems. So don’t worry about solving all the world’s problems, once and for all. Just worry about deploying your interests and talents as best you can, and, hopefully, little by little, each generation will leave the world a little better than as they found it.

I'm a late 50's (Boomer) science professional with a minimal knowledge of history, cause I "just wasn't interested in it" back then. I remember when this book was released, but didn't have the time (or interest) to read it back then. I remember it being controversial during those times because of the "cyclic time" theory which is an interesting concept. Here it is 13 years later and I now have the time (and interest) to check it out. With 13 more years of history to support their arguments, it seems like the theory is being reinforced with more data. Remember, all good theories survive the test of time and additional data. The theory of gravity is still only a theory, but it does seem to grow stronger as more and more data supports the theory's premise. As an observer of nature, we can see many cycles of events and conditions throughout the natural world. Day followed by night and repeated throughout all of recorded history. Other cycles have different time lengths, like the moon's phases and the yearly seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter. Even longer cycles exist, such as the recently discussed "precession of the equinox" event coming in 2012. For anyone considering this book, I can only say that nature is full of cycles of various types. It seems to be a logical step to think that these natural "cycles" can affect the inhabitants of these natural and cyclic systems. If you have an interest in social history and what may lie ahead in these times of "crisis", this book might be helpful to you. As other readers have noted, this is not a "fast" read. It's full of the data supporting their theory and for novice historians, such as myself, there's a bit of a learning curve to get through. I tell my friends, who are interested in this theory of history, read the 1st chapter at least. Slug through it. It took me a few hours to absorb all of the information presented, but at the end of chapter 1, you'll know whether or not you'll read the rest of the book (as I am now doing). This theory seems to have more "meat" than the linear representation of history given to me while in the public school system. I probably would have taken more of an interest in history had I read this book in high school. But, as a Prophet born during the First Turning (High), that was not my generation's behavioral signature. As we face the Fourth Turning, the Prophet elders will need to have some good data to be able to expertly guide the next generations through the Crisis. If you've ever heard the saying "Those who refuse to learn history are destined to repeat it" and think that this rings a little true, this book can give you a good insight to how history has been repeating itself and what might lie ahead. As a scientist, I would like to see this data formally analyzed. The authors say that generations are "roughly" 20 years or so in length. They define some generations as far back as the early 1400's with specific years defining each generation. Scientists don't like words like "roughly" and want to know more specifically what the definition is. What is the standard deviation of this data? Is it 20 years plus or minus 5 years or plus or minus 10 years? I will probably try to analyze this data to some extent to see, mathematically, how strong the correlations are between the various turnings. Overall, as I continue to read this book, it is changing my view of world and American history and seems to make more sense out of the data found in recorded history. I'm liking their theory and will continue to evaluate it's usefulness as time moves on. As I write this review on a chilly November day, we must all realize that winter WILL come again. Are you prepared?

Great book, get it and read it.

What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny I have tried to understand the meaning of the Trump presidency; I have followed the news, listened to psychics on YouTube, even watched tarot readers from Australia. Tarot reader “Ellie dreams down under” mentioned The Fourth Turning as a significant book. The Fourth Turning, An American Prophecy by William Strauss and Neil Howe, gives reassurance because it explains the nature of our current politics. There is nothing mystical in the analysis nor does the book reassure readers that our current crisis will necessarily end well. We are, however, reassured that current events are part of a generational historic pattern that, despite stress and destruction has, in the past, ended well for society. The authors ultimately show that there are actions that we can take to prepare for “The Fourth Turning.” The authors state that English history is divided into seven 80 year “Saeculum,” from the Fifteenth Century to today. Each “Saeculum” is divided into four 20 year “Turnings;” approximately the length of birth to young adulthood, then adulthood, late middle age and finally old age. Four “Turnings,” 20 year units, add to 80 years, a “Saeculum,” the length of a long human life. The text uses extensive cultural and historical material to support the chronological sequence of seven “Saeculum,” beginning with the Wars of the Roses (1458 to 1487) and ending with the “Millennial Saeculum” today. Not all “Turnings” follow the 20 year division precisely. Strauss and Howe argue that the “Civil War Saeculum” was eleven years short, (1794-1863) because intense regional factionalism heated prematurely in the late 1850s with Kansas, Harpers Ferry, Dred Scott and the Underground Railroad. They argue that the Civil War might not have been so violent if it had come later when passions were not so high. This is a fascinating idea though I can’t imagine the Civil War going any other way even if delayed. Our current “Millennial Saeculum,” our own time, extends from 1946 to 2026. The authors state that “If the crisis catalyst comes on schedule, around the year 2005, then the climax will be due around 2020, the resolution around 2026.” (p. 299) The Fourth Turning was published in 1997 making this a stunning prediction. I take the climax of the “Millennial Saeculum” to be the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2020. I believe that the resolution will come with the next presidential election in November 2024 and inauguration in January 2025. I was born in 1945 at the beginning of the Boom Generation. I grew up in “...Sputnick-era schooling, Beaver Cleaver friendliness and Father Knows Best family order.” (p.137) Americans had won WW II and the GI’s were pleased to return home to grow society. I was a child of the “First Turning;” “The American High,” 1946-1964. I started college as a math major to beat the Russians in the space race but soon switched my major to theater arts. In November 1963 Kennedy was shot and the nation shifted into the “Second Turning,” 1964-1984, which the authors term “The Awakening,” a passionate era of spiritual upheaval. What an exciting time to be in theater. Everywhere, it seemed, theater companies worked passionately to rebirth society through performances. “The Unraveling,” 1984-2005, lay ahead with darkening incivility and growing violence. Now we enter the “Fourth Turning”, “The Millennial Crisis”, a stage of our lives yet to be lived. Importantly, Strauss and Howe offer seasonality as a key idea that should be followed by politicians and citizens. Seasonality is the predictable process of growth from inception to fruition, from idea to the realization of that idea, from planting to harvesting. Seasonality is key to solving societal problems. Just as there is a process, procedure and timeline for diagnosing and curing physical ills so there is, on a larger and existential plane, a natural, social, and psychic process of movement toward health. I grew up during “The American High” largely unaware of institutional racism or sexism because these were part of the societal stasis of “The American High.” I witnessed “The Awakening,” an explosion in the arts addressing a range of social ills as I ended graduate school and entered the teaching profession. “The Awakening” required cultural experimentation and youth revolt in reaction to “The American High.” We are now in a dark turning, “The Unraveling,” a time of distrust in government and a polarized population. Our “Fourth Turning” is projected by Strauss and Howe to be resolved, for good or ill, by the next presidential election. It is as if society holds a single personality during each “Turning.” We are deeply troubled now. Hopefully society will together face the problems ahead of us in 2026. Seasonality is an important tool to help us understand this phenomenon and make sense of the time in which we live.

This book is a follow-up to an earlier book by the same authors, called "Generations". I'd recommend reading both, starting with "Generations". There's a lot of overlap between the two; but each of them has a somewhat different focus. "Generations" gives more of a "big picture" view of the subject, whereas "The Fourth Turning" focuses more on the implications of the ideas first laid out in "Generations". It's possible to follow the argument presented in "The Fourth Turning" without having first read "Generations"; but you'll understand it a lot better if you read "Generations" first. If you don't want to read both books, then I'd have to recommend reading "Generations" instead of this, since it provides a more comprehensive treatment of the subject. But both are worth reading. Both books deal with essentially the same subject: the impact of generational change on the course of American history. "Generations" is basically a history of America viewed from a generational perspective. "The Fourth Turning" uses this generational approach to understanding history as a launching point for an examination of where America is heading in the not-too-distant future. The authors' basic thesis is that each generation has its own particular outlook on life -- its own set of shared values and priorities -- that distinguishes it from the generations that immediately precede it. As each generation comes of age and begins to take over the social roles once occupied by its elders, it brings a new agenda to the table. When this happens, old norms and policies get discarded in favor of new ways of doing things. Therefore, generational change is what drives social change. The controversy surrounding these two books stems from two aspects of the authors' thesis: First, they believe they can explain, and even predict, the changes in attitude that occur from one generation to the next. Second, they propose that these changes occur in regular cycles, which implies that history is, at least to some degree, cyclical. It's a fascinating idea, but one that makes many historians and social scientists uncomfortable. Historians generally reject the notion that history follows any sort of pattern than can be predicted ahead of time. Social scientists, on the other hand, are all about looking for historical patterns, and trying to use those patterns as the basis for prediction; but they know from experience how easy it is to see nonexistent "patterns" in random data, and how tempting it can be to cherry pick data points to fit a hypothesized "pattern" that's not really there. The historical "pattern" that the authors identify in these two books is fascinating, and may actually be real; but the evidence presented to substantiate the authors' thesis is just not sufficient to be scientifically persuasive. But that doesn't mean that it's wrong. All it means is that we can't be sure that it's right. Nonetheless, right or wrong, it's an interesting idea that's worth exploring; and it may even prove useful. At the very least, it will challenge how you view history and how you think about the future. In my view, that alone makes these two books worth reading.

Strauss and Howe wrote a lot of books regarding their generational, cyclical approach to understanding sociology and history. They were the first to use the term "Millennial" and have received praise from political insiders as diverse as Al Gore and Steve Bannon. It's easy to understand why Strauss and Howe attracted both attention and controversy, as their approach is wildly different than that taken by most academic historians of the past 40 years or so.Their four-tiered generational cycle is very useful for seeing similarities between generational world views that are separated by multiple decades, and helps to suggest why certain challenges morph into full-blown crises whereas others do not. It all has to do with where in the cycle the challenges occur. Unfortunately, despite a very intriguing concept and the fun that comes from seeing overfamiliar events through a different (perhaps skewed) lens, "The Fourth Turning" reminded me far too much of many of the pseudo-scientific Y2K doomsday paperbacks that flooded bookstores in the late 1990s (which was when this particular book was written). It's one of those books that is badly in need of editing, filled with factual inaccuracies, redundant text and odd typos. There's no excuse for this in a reprinting of a book that's over 20 years old as of this reviewing. Furthermore, the most reliable sections of Strauss and Howe's data seems to only go back to around 1900 which makes this more of a 20th Century history tome than one truly addressing all of American history. There's an over-reliance on mystical-sounding archaic terms and overuse of the word "prophecy" throughout and Strauss and Howe lean more heavily on pop culture and entertainment as examples than on census data, biography, trends in litigation, timing of recessions and inflation, and so forth. This results in wild generalizations based upon slanted selection of examples and even wilder speculation about the forthcoming Crisis that Millennials are supposed to rise to the challenge of solving. (We are supposedly halfway through this crisis as of 2017). The cycle-based theory, while interesting, also falls into the same trap as stage theories fell into within the realm of psychology. Simply put, if there's a tremendous diversity within a stage then there's limited benefit to considering the unfolding of stages. In reading Strauss and Howe's summaries of the Boomers, the GI Generation and Silents I kept thinking about how so many of those supposedly cycle-specific traits could be found within individuals belonging to different generations and how so many of them just don't apply beyond middle-class White America. The truth is a lot more complicated than this book suggests. Technological developments and the ebb and flow of economic stability have a lot more to do with generational differences than the cyclical model gives credit for. Regardless - I enjoyed reading it and will recommend it to others. I think it's a useful thought exercise to consider history in this way and I also think that it's a useful antidote to our tendency to always revert to linear thinking. It's a long book, but aside from the archaic descriptors it isn't overly intellectually challenging. Give it a try without expecting it to have concrete, actionable recommendations.

Great items thanks

Letters are to small. Bad printing.

Livro fantástico sobre os ciclos da história. Poderia ter sido escrito ontem. Muito atual e esclarecedor.

いま、「第四の節目、アメリカの預言」(The Fourth Turning, An American Prophecy) に注目している。このような考えかたもあるのかと、感心し、またちょっと畏怖の念も感じている。この本はおよそいまから20年前に書かれたものであるが、時代の転換期である現代をよく言い表している面が多い。「サイキュラム」という考えかた、そして、「節目」を鵜呑みにする必要はないが、少なくとも、いまは第四の節目「危機」の時代、古い秩序・価値観がくずれ、新しいものにとって置き換えられる時代、新しい価値観が植え付けられる時代の曲がり角にいる、ということを頭の片隅にいれておかねばならないかもしれない。

Uppdatering till min tidigare recension. Boken kom fram till slut efter lång leveranstid och betald tullavgift. Blev kontaktad av säljaren och fick tullavgiften återbetald vilket var bra gjort och snabbt hanterat. Plus för hanteringen av Book Depository, men segt att beställa om varorna först ska fastna i tullen. Amazon.se borde vara tydligare kring detta.

The book is highly informative and indeed provides the broad contours of what was to come in the 2000s as and 2010s. It's fascinating to go back in time and try to understand the view of the present 30 years in the past. The 'catalyst' that occurs at or near the beginning of the fourth turning (after the Unraveling has fully unraveled) I took to be the Great Financial Crisis circa 2008/09. The climax, some have suggested, is the pandemic and broad social upheaval that has accompanied it. I don't think that's the case, and the climax has yet to arrive. The book predicts the end-event(s) of the fourth turning would occur anywhere between 2020 and 2026 -- and recall, each of the previous fourth-turning climaxes were man-made *socially* transformative events, mostly wars (Revolution, Civil etc). You could make an argument that Jan. 6 is perhaps the transformative climax of this turning, but it's not a convincing one. I would love to get the surviving author's opinion on whether or not the Crisis climax is yet to come, and whether he foresees the turning ending well, or badly. Both outcomes are possible as the book says; one will lead to a new optimistic and productive High period (post-WW2 boom) the other toward a new 'first turning' that will be quite different than our current era, and not for the better for most of us.