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The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us about America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny

William Strauss,

Neil Howe

3.92 · Rating details · 3,624 ratings · 549 reviews

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "A startling vision of what the cycles of history predict for the future."--USA Weekend

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 ...more

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Paperback, 400 pages

Published December 29th 1997 by Crown Publishing Group (NY) (first published December 1st 1996)

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Feb 02, 2017 Maru Kun marked it as not-to-read

If you want to give your self a fright then read this article on the pseudo-history of Strauss-Howe Generational Theory, then read this book and finally reflect on the fact that, as reported in Time Magazine, it is one of the favorite works of Steve Bannon as it forms the basis of these beliefs:

Bannon noted repeatedly on his radio show that "we're at war" with radical jihadis in places around the world. This is "a global existential war" that likely will become "a major shooting war in the M

...more

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Feb 20, 2011 J. rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2011-reads

The Fourth Turning explains a theoretical approach to history - a cyclical system of societal high, awakening, unraveling and crisis. Each period has a corresponding stereotype: prophet, nomad, hero and artist. The time period for a cycle is the course of a generation, deemed a saeculum. Each of the four periods in a saeculum lasts between 17 to 29 years. The authors piece together historical events to fit their theory. The only abnormality (that they acknowledge) is the U.S. civil war. I did no The Fourth Turning explains a theoretical approach to history - a cyclical system of societal high, awakening, unraveling and crisis. Each period has a corresponding stereotype: prophet, nomad, hero and artist. The time period for a cycle is the course of a generation, deemed a saeculum. Each of the four periods in a saeculum lasts between 17 to 29 years. The authors piece together historical events to fit their theory. The only abnormality (that they acknowledge) is the U.S. civil war. I did not agree with their classification of generations or stereotypes, their decisions about 'crisis' periods, or their proposed preparations to prevent total and lasting destruction.

This book is poorly written. It is a potpourri of random facts, scholarly borrowings and unsubstantiated claims. The authors cite numerous types of cycles, most of which are not relevant to their thesis. They also cite dozens of parallel claims by historical scholars; yet they only use "money quotes" without any substantive analysis.

While the authors present a novel idea, and there are clearly repetitions in historical periods, this pre-packaged form of history troubles me on several levels. First, their cited events rely on a mythological understand of history, with many important facts and events conveniently forgotten. Second, this form of simplified history rejects a careful and nuanced understanding of complicated world events. Third, it pretends that we can actually understand and predict history by reading charts - a claim mostly made by cult leaders and hedge fund managers. Finally, their approach is set forth as universal, yet the book is devoid of international examples. If China has retained civil society for thousands of years, why isn't this cycle more obvious there?

The authors have an obvious right-wing agenda. The preparations urged onto their readers for the coming crisis are typical of John Birch evangelism. I couldn't help but picture the authors sitting next to John Forbes Nash, Jr. ("A Beautiful Mind") in a garage pinning random Life Magazine articles to the wall and drawing lines through seemingly random events to construct an alternate universe. ...more

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Feb 22, 2008 Pamela rated it really liked it

Wow! I could totally see why Obama won the election after reading this--and why McCain did not. This is an amazing book on the patterns of history--and, as it was written 10 years ago, a dead-on prediction of the last 10 years. After reading it, I'm preparing for another crisis in the next 5 years. (I personally think the next American Crisis is going to be a cultural civil war--we'll see!) ...more

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Aug 22, 2008 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The first quarter of this book is junk. It's a review of moldy pseudoscience about theories of four - four humours, four elements, four seasons, four temperaments, four phases of life. It has little or nothing to do with the central premise that there is a four generation cycle of behavior in Angle-American society - all you have to do to justify the length of this cycle to me is to point out that the normal death from old age occurs about four generations after birth. After the authors finish w The first quarter of this book is junk. It's a review of moldy pseudoscience about theories of four - four humours, four elements, four seasons, four temperaments, four phases of life. It has little or nothing to do with the central premise that there is a four generation cycle of behavior in Angle-American society - all you have to do to justify the length of this cycle to me is to point out that the normal death from old age occurs about four generations after birth. After the authors finish with the above nonsense, they get into actually detailing the different cycles, and the subsections of each. There have been seven cycles since the 1400s, and each cycle has four subsections called Turnings, each corresponding to a particular constellation of generations. There are four kinds of generations and they always appear in the same order (except for once!): Hero, Artist, Prophet, and Nomad. There are therefore four Turnings: High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis. The social environment (constellation of generations) determines the values and behavior of each new generation, which influences the future generations, so the cycles keep rolling. The theory is not deterministic - it does not predict what events will happen - it only tries to predict how Americans will respond to events that inevitably occur. This makes a lot of intuitive sense to me and the authors present a lot of evidence to back up their assertions. However, I have not looked for criticisms of their work or know enough about the history of social movements to say whether there is substantial counter evidence. The book was written in 1997, and it is interesting to read how the authors feel the Silent (b. 1925-1942, Artist), Boom (b. 1943-1960, Prophet), Thirteenth (b. 1961-1981, Nomad), and Millennial (b. 1982-200?, Hero) generations would develop over the next decade (that is, the last decade from where we sit), before the Crisis catalyst arrived somewhere around 2005. To me, it seems like they miss the mark. Maybe I don't have a good grasp of what's really going on outside my own experience, maybe they were wrong, or maybe the Crisis started earlier than they expected (say, September 2001). Missed predictions aside, they seem to get a lot of the general feeling of American society right. All in all, interesting to think about. ...more

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Jul 21, 2020 Trike rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, read-in-2020, history

Prescient. These guys, who were the ones to name “Millennials”, published this book in 1997 and were right about America entering a crisis sometime around 2005, either a few years before (9/11) or a few years after (2008 financial crash), predicting a new wave of feminism (#MeToo), cultural upheaval (Black Lives Matter) and a turn toward conservative and religious beliefs with a strong streak of authoritarianism.

They were able to do this because it has all happened before. Six times over the pas ...more

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Apr 25, 2018 Bryan Alexander rated it it was ok

Shelves: babyboomers, futurism, american-history

It’s important for futurists to examine flawed futuring work and learn from it. I’ve said this before, reflecting on my own forecasting misfires. I haven’t offered many criticisms of others’ work, largely for reasons of time. I’d like to start doing some more of this.

Why? There are all kinds of benefits to this kind of analysis. One involves testing the limits of a given method (Delphi, trends extrapolation, etc.) by seeing what it misses… which then suggests how one can either modify the method ...more

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Feb 17, 2008 Christy Peterson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: education

There is so much corruption that I am looking forward to this next crisis. This attitude is predicted on page 257. Do I realize what I am actually saying? Maybe.

I give it 5 stars for introducing a new paradigm that understands history as cyclic, not linear. I loved the hero cycle described in the archetype and am going to read Hero With a Thousand Faces soon. I was fascinated at how wars turn out and are remembered in history when they aren’t 4th Turning wars. The Civil War and was a fascinatin ...more

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Feb 19, 2017 Lisa Reads & Reviews rated it did not like it

I'll give 2 or 3 reasons why this book should be read and trashed by everyone. First, it is only a hypothesis, not a theory because the premise has not been generally accepted. Despite that, consultants and speakers are perpetuating the ideas and sparking groups of true believers who adhere to it like a new religion, on faith instead of sound research or discourse. Steve Bannon, self proclaimed Leninist and adviser to SCPOTUS Trump is a prominent proponent of the Strauss–Howe generational hypoth ...more

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Jul 16, 2008 Celeste Batchelor rated it really liked it

Shelves: tjed-for-teens-supplements, 5-pillar, tjed-for-teens, non-fiction

UPDATE: Re-reading this one as part of a study group. I'm excited to STUDY this one deeper.

This was a necessary, but a tough read. I recommend it even though I only gave it three stars. I learned a great deal from this book, I just wish it was explained in more layman's terms. At times I felt angry and even stopped reading the book for a few days to clear my head of hurt feelings when reading of my Boomer generation parents and how they parented. I did find these generalizations to be true for ...more

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Jan 22, 2019 Charles Haywood rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I am almost ashamed to review this book. It is like reviewing "Fifty Shades of Grey"—the mere fact the someone publicly admits he has read it degrades both him and his listeners. My only defense is that Steve Bannon has repeatedly stated this book is a major influence on his thought. He’s a clever man. So I sought wisdom by following his lead, but instead, I got a rotten egg. While I still have a great deal of respect for Bannon, having read this book, the Respect-O-Meter has dropped by roughly I am almost ashamed to review this book. It is like reviewing "Fifty Shades of Grey"—the mere fact the someone publicly admits he has read it degrades both him and his listeners. My only defense is that Steve Bannon has repeatedly stated this book is a major influence on his thought. He’s a clever man. So I sought wisdom by following his lead, but instead, I got a rotten egg. While I still have a great deal of respect for Bannon, having read this book, the Respect-O-Meter has dropped by roughly 60%. He may gain the respect back, for example by correctly predicting the results of, and the impact of, this coming May’s elections to the European Parliament. But it will be a task, after subjecting me to "The Fourth Turning."

This will not be a long review; that merely prolongs the agony. I write only to sketch out the major areas of failure, to make clear your need to avoid losing time you will never see again. At its core this book requires a total detachment of the reader from reality. The American singer Cat Stevens (bear with me) is known nowadays for having adopted Salafi Islam and being a rabid Jew-hater. But before he converted, he was big into numerology, as I remember from watching, some years ago, a VH1 “Behind the Music” special on his life. In that phase of his life, at least, Stevens would have been very comfortable with "The Fourth Turning," because the entire book is prophecy based on numerology. All that’s missing is a good dose of astrology.

In a nutshell, what William Strauss and Neil Howe claim is that all human affairs are, always have been, and always will be, governed by a time period, the saeculum, which approximates the length of a “long human life,” or roughly eighty years. Each saeculum has four generations, each of which has universal and certain characteristics, which succeed each other like the tick-tock of a clock. I am not going to tell you anything about them, their names or anything else, though, because they are stupid. Each saeculum also has a succession of events, from Awakening to Crisis, in a repeating pattern. After the climax of a Crisis, the society reboots itself and is reborn; this is the “Fourth Turning.” Strauss and Howe predicted, in 1997, such a Crisis beginning around 2005, with the rebirth to be complete by around 2025.

Before we get to the predictions, let’s cover the core structure. The reader quickly realizes that all this is a charlatan’s game, when he reads how narrowly the authors constrain their historical examination. Despite muttering about the Romans and the ancient Hindus, they identify only six saecula, beginning at the end of the Wars of the Roses, through 1997. This is the “Anglo-American Saeculum.” No attempt whatsoever is made to extend their analysis beyond England, until the Glorious Revolution, after which no mention at all is made of England, and the focus shifts solely to America. No Europe. No Asia. No Africa. Nothing at all. You’d think at least some attempt would be made to extend this supposedly universal framework beyond a very stripped-down history of America, but you would be wrong.

Even worse, the stated reason for beginning the examination of cycles around 1500 A.D. is not, as one might expect, lack of data. As becomes clear later, only the most trivial and superficial data is necessary for the authors to claim support for their theory. No, it’s because until the Reformation, don’t you know, Europeans could not comprehend linear time, except for maybe a few priests. Everyone lived in the eternal, cyclical now. The ignorance of this is astounding, and moreover it’s not clear why supposedly immutable and invariable generational cycles would be obviated by the common people’s perception of time, but nonetheless, it is the authors’ excuse for narrowing their time window to a convenient one—namely, one where throwing out a few names from the relevant time period makes it seem like the authors know what they are talking about, because of the vague familiarity most people have with at least some of the names.

Much ink is spilled in pseudo-academic and pseudo-scientific jargon. Many tables and charts are offered, complete with arrows to guide the confused reader through pop history along the desired garden path. The writing is terrible—rambling, repetitive, and reeking of selective fact choice. Even ignoring the tightly constrained focus, the exposition of the supposed saecula is risible. It consists of shouting out references to well-known figures, such as Abraham Lincoln, or cultural happenings, such as the Great Depression or rock-and-roll; giving a short and utterly flat (and often false) description of the figure or happening; and then making an enormous leap to conclude that figure or happening proves something, by itself, about a twenty- or forty-year period in history, which just so happens to coincide exactly with the authors’ thesis. It is a total waste of time; you would be better informed about world history by reading "Goodnight Moon."

Every substantive prediction in this book has been falsified. No, there has not been another religious “Great Awakening” in America. The 1990s are not remembered as a time of misery. Old people today are not inspired to refuse government handouts and young people have not stood up to deny them handouts. The Baby Boomers in their retirement have not created new forms of civic life. Nor have they created an “elder ethos that will hinge on self-denial.” I laughed out loud when I read that, before I read that “On the job, Millennials will be seekers of order and harmony. They will delight employers with their skills, work habits, and institutional loyalties.” I nearly ruptured myself laughing after that one. Even a blind squirrel is supposed to find a few nuts, but surveying the predictions in this book, that adage has been disproven.

The Crisis, ending a saeculum, that the authors predict isn’t some minor tumult, but, by the examples they give, something along the lines of complete political breakdown, major war, or a widespread pandemic leading to social near-collapse. Society will stabilize; then, after a few years, society will change dramatically, creating a new Awakening, and beginning the cycle again. Some people, doubtless Bannon among them, seem to think that because Strauss and Howe predicted a Crisis beginning around 2005, that they are therefore great prognosticators. No doubt Bannon would like a Crisis to help move his program forward; I have a lot of sympathy for that view. But it takes no skill to claim that any advanced society will, at least every few decades, pass through something that can justly be cast as a crisis, yet is still modest, and the 2007 financial crisis fits into that mold. It was not an existential Crisis in the sense the authors predicted. Nor does it take much skill to predict that America, which has been in decay for decades, will someday face an existential Crisis. It hasn’t arrived yet, though, and time is up on Strauss’s and Howe’s predictions.

Oh, it’ll come, because history will return. But this book does not tell us anything about it. Certainly, if there is a such an extreme Crisis, the path of initial stabilization followed by a reworking of society is more or less the typical one. Where the authors go wrong is in thinking there is any more pattern to history than that. That in retrospect some groups of people born roughly at the same time may evince, when viewed from certain angles, a set of common characteristics, does not create some kind of magic predictability machine. There is no wisdom here. ...more

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Jun 06, 2008 Natasha rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, sociology

Strauss and Howe make a strong argument for studying time cyclically. Not only does a definite pattern of seasons of growth and decay emerge over the centuries, but generations are formed determined by their relation in time to historical events. For example, generations who come of age during a crisis take on a hero role as they march in step to the orders of their elders and save the day. The authors claim, "When history is viewed as seasonal . . . each generation can discover its own path acr ...more

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Jun 13, 2009 Beth A. rated it really liked it

Recommended to Beth A. by: Laura

Shelves: nonfiction, political

A slow read, but interesting and thought provoking. It’s an attempt to predict the future in a fairly general way based on patterns in history and repeating generational traits. It’s an intriguing idea that as a generation our personalities may be formed- by the parenting and actions of our elders- in such a way that our traits can be traced back and predicted forward in rotating patterns that cause historical and current events to adhere to similar patterns. This theory seemed to make sense to A slow read, but interesting and thought provoking. It’s an attempt to predict the future in a fairly general way based on patterns in history and repeating generational traits. It’s an intriguing idea that as a generation our personalities may be formed- by the parenting and actions of our elders- in such a way that our traits can be traced back and predicted forward in rotating patterns that cause historical and current events to adhere to similar patterns. This theory seemed to make sense to me and made me think about the times we live in and what to expect next.

If you’re still interested after reading the above paragraph, go ahead and click (view spoiler) for even more of my confused ramblings.
...more

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Oct 08, 2011 Jayne rated it really liked it

Back in 2008, I read The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. I just came across a review (more like a synopsis) that I had put on LiveJournal at the time, so I figured I might as well post it here:

First, let the record show that "Everybody Knows" was originally written and recorded by Leonard Cohen, and to attribute the lyrics to Concrete Blonde demonstrates some willful fucking ignorance.

Second, did you know that Generation X was "the most-aborted generation in U.S. history"?

I don' ...more

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Jul 26, 2017 Vagabond of Letters, DLitt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This and 'Generations' predicted the meteoric rise of SJW culture (a spiritual awakening, and SJWism is nothing but secular Neopuritanism [Mitchell 2020, Yarvin 2007*]) as the direct result of a catastrophe - likely financial. The dates given were 2005-20 for the catastrophe and 2015-30 for the awakening. Pretty fucking spot on for books written 10-30 years before the events predicted when most 10 year predictions fail (Silver 2012).

The Strauss-Howe cycle is 80 years which comprises two Kondrati This and 'Generations' predicted the meteoric rise of SJW culture (a spiritual awakening, and SJWism is nothing but secular Neopuritanism [Mitchell 2020, Yarvin 2007*]) as the direct result of a catastrophe - likely financial. The dates given were 2005-20 for the catastrophe and 2015-30 for the awakening. Pretty fucking spot on for books written 10-30 years before the events predicted when most 10 year predictions fail (Silver 2012).

The Strauss-Howe cycle is 80 years which comprises two Kondratieff waves (Kondratieff 1935) and 4 Kuznets swings. Four K-waves or two 4-generation cycles comprise a 'Great Wave' (Hackett Fischer 1999).** The Strauss-Howe thesis is falsifiable given a prediction failure rate of over, I'd say, 25%.

Strauss-Howe theory and K-waves are some of those spooky sociological action at a distance things like statistical analysis of the stock market. Like how in 2007 a civilizational crisis was almost laughable, but not as laughable as the idea of a spiritual awakening in the near-term when 'indifferentism' and 'relativism' and 'lack of values' - not religiously-held radical values and witch hunts redivivus - were the bogeyman of the day. Not that I really believe it - but I've obviously thought enough about it to entertain the idea. Only in the past year or two has the concept of radical postmaterial leftism as religion entered the fringes of mainstream discourse (Mitchell 2020; Murray 2019; cf Campbell and Manning 2018).

As to K-waves, Nefiodov predicted a societal shift towards obsession with physical and 'psychosocial' health (i.e., the pathologization of deviant opinions and 'Triumph of the Therapeutic' all in one) with a peak in 2020 back in 2003.

I think Strauss and Howe are really on to something and link it to a sort of 'r/K seesaw' (Rushton 1994) with epicycles mediated by epigenetics (Penman 2015) during cycles of much larger life history adaptations (Woodley, Peñaherrera-Aguirre, et al. 2018), as well as elucidating the effects of the residuum of behavior environmentally determined instead of narrowly heritable (Sarraf, Feltham, et al. 2020). Other works lend credence to this hypothesis though it's never been tested and not sure it's testable. Like classical Marxian theorists, we're still in search of the 'iron laws of history', and Marxists were the first to attempt it in nontheological terms.

I'm not sure how K-waves, Great Waves, or Kuznets swings fit in, but several different theories - including Elliott's original grand supercycle (Elliott 1938) now most famous for badly predicting stock prices - operated on either 40, 80, or 160/ year cycles. Strauss and Howe give a possible reason why.

*Pseudonym 'Mencius Moldbug', essays 'How Dawkins Got Pwned' and 'M.41 and M.42'. See also Land in Laliberte (ed.) 2014, 'Dark Enlightenment'.

**At the end of each of the four previous Great Waves, 'Each revolution is marked by continuing inflation, a widening gap between rich and poor, increasing instability, and finally a crisis at the crest of the wave that is characterized by demographic contraction, social and political upheaval, and economic collapse. The most violent of these climaxes was the catastrophic fourteenth century, in which war, famine, and the Black Death devastated the continent--the only time in Europe's history that the population actually declined.' (Hackett Fischer 1999, introduction). ...more

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Jun 25, 2020 Kylie Crawford rated it liked it

The theory explored in this book is interesting and seems obvious when you think about it. History is made up of generations, and kids grow up in reaction to their parents and society’s leaders. Wouldn’t that lend itself to a cycle?

Why is there a catastrophic event every hundred years or so that seems to remake society from its core? Could it have something to do with the generation, the pattern of who is in charge, who is a young adult, and the willingness of that generation to take action?

In The theory explored in this book is interesting and seems obvious when you think about it. History is made up of generations, and kids grow up in reaction to their parents and society’s leaders. Wouldn’t that lend itself to a cycle?

Why is there a catastrophic event every hundred years or so that seems to remake society from its core? Could it have something to do with the generation, the pattern of who is in charge, who is a young adult, and the willingness of that generation to take action?

In WW1, America waited two years after being bombed to join. In WW2, they declared war the next day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Go back 100-80 years and you get the civil war, again and you find the revolutionary war. The authors of this book sensed the patterns of the people, generations who were dealing with catastrophe throughout history, and explored them when they noticed underlying similarities.

We have a cycle of Prophet, Nomad, Hero, Artist. And guess what? Society is at its fourth turning.

That simply means that this book said some explosion (starting in 2005-25) would occur, spurred on by a lot of small pockets of discontent and unrest (I swear, some of their examples made me frown and re-examine the publication date). Some issues that other generations would have brushed off, or lived through stoically will spark a wildfire that will cause America’s citizens to tear our society at its seams. The generation will be aching for a change.

We’ve come out of all our fourth turnings better so far, WW2, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, let’s hope we can pull together for this one. With civic and personal responsibility, trust, and luck, hopefully we will.

What was disappointing was how “eh” this book was as an actually read. I laughed through some chapters but found myself zoning out and really needing to push through the beginning. And while the authors got the dates right it’s not hard to see how generalizing actions of groups of millions of people is hard to pin down. Has our world been receptive to Millennials? When they hit job markets during the Great Recession, did people bend over trying to make sure they didn’t fail? Hard to say. But the pinning down of the years of our struggle (2020, resolving in 2026) was uncanny.

Forewarned is forearmed, but who believed that we would experience the cocktail of issues we have now? I bet people thought the Great Recession was “it” and were surprised that society didn’t really shake and change like they expected. Throw in a virus and civil unrest, and maybe some big shift will take place. We can only hope it’s for the better, and we can try our best to ensure a good outcome by remaining informed and responsible citizens, adapting to swinging changes that might emerge. ...more

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Mar 01, 2019 Nick Martin rated it it was amazing

If the joy that a book brings (see also: life itself) is less about the what that happens and more about the experience of passing time in a particular way — guided by authors, invited to align our thinking as tourist-readers for a while with theirs as guides . . .

There is much that is speculative here. And conveniently grouped. And over-generalized. A skeptical reader will find opportunities abundant to jump off this train. I, however, treated it as meditation, and enjoyed the hell out of the r ...more

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Jun 06, 2021 Jack Wolflow rated it liked it

If the cycles are inevitable, as the nature and history perfectly evidences, there's not much we have to put against the force of them. There are many signals we are heading into the abyss of the prophetical fourth turning. Neglecting and fighting the fourth turning would be like neglecting and fighting winter. However, the author gives some advices how to survive it.

The book is a very comprehensive work on cycles. The research is however almost completely centered on the Western world, lacking ...more

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Mar 29, 2017 Jon Stout rated it liked it

Recommends it for: the hopeful and the heroic

Recommended to Jon by: Sandye Wilson

Two factors drew me to this book. First was much discussion among my friends, including at my church, of how to work with and appeal to Millennials. Second was the news item that Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s theoretician, was much influenced by Strauss and Howe’s work. Taken together, these two incentives were too much to pass up. I was happy to launch into an interesting discussion of American generations, as they have defined themselves over my lifetime.

Strauss and Howe’s thesis is that Americ Two factors drew me to this book. First was much discussion among my friends, including at my church, of how to work with and appeal to Millennials. Second was the news item that Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s theoretician, was much influenced by Strauss and Howe’s work. Taken together, these two incentives were too much to pass up. I was happy to launch into an interesting discussion of American generations, as they have defined themselves over my lifetime.

Strauss and Howe’s thesis is that American history has taken place repeating a cycle, or saeculum, of approximately eighty years. Each saeculum consists of four generational segments representing a High, an Awakenng, an Unraveling, and a Crisis. The concluding Crises in American history have been the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Depression/World War II. We are about due for another Crisis. The generations of the current saeculum (after the G.I.’s of the last Crisis) are the Silent who came of age in the post-war years, the Boomers who grew up in the counterculture sixties, the Gen-Xers of the Reagan years, and the Millennials of the new millennium.

This structure presents a complicated matrix in three dimensions. There is a progression in historical time. There is a progression in life stages (childhood, young adulthood, midlife, and elderhood). As each generation transits historical time and its own life stages, there are four generations active, so we follow a drama of interacting generations, in which the actors come onstage, play different roles, and then exit. This can be confusing, but comes into focus when we consider a generation about which we care, such our own (in my case the Boomer) or that of our children.

I visualize it as four superimposed sine waves, each out of synch with the previous by a quarter cycle, so that at any point in time there is a rising, a high, a declining, and a low. One could also visualize this as the seasons of the year, with summer, fall, winter, spring all overlapping each other, as expressed in different generations.

So much for the set-up; now for the conclusions. I can see how Steve Bannon thinks that the current divisions in our country are building to a Crisis similar to our major wars. I also get that he thinks that economic or ethnic nationalism might be the way to resolve the Crisis. But most reviewers, myself included, hold that Strauss and Howe cannot be held responsible for Steve Bannon’s ideas.

As for working with Millennials, the younger generation in my family fall on the cusp between Gen-Xers and Millennials. Gen-Xers are described as being disregarded, unappreciated, and self-reliant. Apart from being “latch-key” children with two working parents, my offspring doesn’t seem disregarded or unappreciated. Millennials are anti-institutional, public-spirited and like to work in teams. My offspring has some of that, and will, I think, end up leading and managing Millennials. No pressure, but they are the future.

As for myself, Strauss and Howe call on the Boomers to be the “Gray Champions,” offering moral support and wisdom in the coming Crisis, while giving up some of our perquisites (government benefits) for the greater good. We are called not to be so self-centered as we are accustomed to be. I can live with that, and am looking forward to being a Gray Champion, in the style of Bernie Sanders.
...more

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Apr 19, 2011 Scott rated it it was amazing

Shelves: spirituality, psychology, feminism-and-gender-studies, social-sciences, historical, politics, business-leadership

This is the best book I have read all year, in terms of how much it has changed my worldview. My wife has noticed that I am now seeing just about everything through the lens of generational cohorts, and in terms of the "fourth turning" we are now in as a society. The book was written by some liberal baby-boomers, but the basic premise (that we are heading toward a crisis) seems to fit with similar predictions from folks on the political right as well (such as Glenn Beck, who predicts global econ This is the best book I have read all year, in terms of how much it has changed my worldview. My wife has noticed that I am now seeing just about everything through the lens of generational cohorts, and in terms of the "fourth turning" we are now in as a society. The book was written by some liberal baby-boomers, but the basic premise (that we are heading toward a crisis) seems to fit with similar predictions from folks on the political right as well (such as Glenn Beck, who predicts global economic collapse and skyrocketing food prices in the near future). The authors' predictions are based on the past 500 years of Anglo-American history; they outline a recurring 80-100 year cycle of High, Awakening, Unraveling, Crisis that they chart in detail. I'm especially impressed with the predictions that they've gleaned from the last 6 Crises our society has been through, including: when the crisis will peak, what the mood of the nation will be at the time, and what the reaction will be to it by our children, ourselves, and our parents' generations. Anyone interested in writing a book about the near future (i.e., what the nation will be like 20 years from now) would do well to take a look at the authors' research (unless you like getting things terribly wrong). One observation they make that is, I think, especially keen, is that as we approach a new turning in this cycle (such as from an Unraveling phase to a Crisis phase as we are now), most pundits and analysts who try to predict the mood and issues of our society get it wrong: they expect more of the same, and are usually surprised when the next phase of the cycle is drastically different from the current one. Since we are now at the boundary between an Unraveling and a Crisis, many wrongly predict that we'll have more societal splintering, more culture wars, more alienation between disparate groups with seemingly irreconcilable goals, more latch-key kids, more crime, higher divorce rates, more class division, more risky behaviors among the youth, etc. If you don't know what the last major Crisis period (1929-1945) was like, you'll be very surprised when the nation pulls together to face its next major challenge. Also look to the American Civil War, the Revolutionary War, the Glorious Revolution, the Spanish Armada Crisis, and the War of the Roses (the other Crisis periods they track) to understand how society will become more civic-focused and less apt to tolerate individualism, risk-taking, and dissent. A fascinating read for anyone who is interested in our next 80 years--at least what the past would predict they'll be like. They admit that they could be wrong, but also point out that the cycle hasn't failed to produce a Crisis at this point for the last 6 cycles, and that they come with surprising regularity.

This book will help you prepare for the future, understand the present, and give you a framework for putting the past together, as no history book ever could. ...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Shad rated it it was ok

I know you really liked this one, which is why I was a little concerned about posting my rating. First, I think I'm a stingier rater overall. Basically, I think of the Book of Mormon as my 5, so it is pretty hard for other books to stack up. Second, while there were several things I appreciated about the book, I disagreed with much of the "methodology" and reasoning.

I did appreciate the effort to take a broader view of history, and I do think that cycles play roles in history and in our lives t I know you really liked this one, which is why I was a little concerned about posting my rating. First, I think I'm a stingier rater overall. Basically, I think of the Book of Mormon as my 5, so it is pretty hard for other books to stack up. Second, while there were several things I appreciated about the book, I disagreed with much of the "methodology" and reasoning.

I did appreciate the effort to take a broader view of history, and I do think that cycles play roles in history and in our lives today.

However, I believe the fundamental failing of the book is the inability to appreciate the role of progress in society. In fact, I thought it was somewhat ironic that you sent me The Birth of Plenty at the same time as this book. The two are based on fundamentally opposed views of history. The Birth of Plenty fully appreciates progress and exemplifies the type of book The Fourth Turning criticizes so vehemently.

As with many polarized debates, I believe the answer lies somewhere in between. I do think society cycles through history, but I believe it is predominantly in an upward direction.

I feel the authors came up with an idea they liked that fit some of the data and then forced it onto history rather than having observed history and then expounded on the patterns they found. They continually discuss how certain generations were "the most" this or that but didn't seem to appreciate that indicates a linear progression (either upward or downward). I found their attempt to explain how their 80-100 year cycle went so drastically wrong for the saeculum prior to and following the Civil War. What seems more likely is that they simply couldn't deny that the Civil War was indicative of a 4th Turning (though they were able to claim WWI was not).

I did think it was an interesting review of cultural history, but I don't know enough about that to assess its accuracy. It did seem, though, that they glossed over serious differences within generations, and I think they overgeneralize. I don't think there is a set line in the sand between one generation and the next. I believe it is more of a spectrum and that, to the extent it is possible to identify behavioral patterns and attitudes within generations, they would ary from one end of the generation to the other.

Ironically, given my job, I thought they overplayed the importance of war, falling into a common trap in the field of history in which people focus on the best known or most-written about events of the era rather than everything that was going on at the time. For example, in the future, our day may be best known for OIF and OEF, but I don't think most Americans (including myself) would consider those to be the most important things going on right now.

I did appreciate the opportunity to think and see things from a different perspective. I believe cycles are a part of history.

Finally, they cite with approval Nietzsche (most famous for his quote "God is dead"), so I have an issue with that, too.

PS - My favorite Nietzsche joke was supposedly seen grafittied somewhere and read:

God is dead.
-Nietzsche

Nietzsche is dead.
-God ...more

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Jan 15, 2017 Avery rated it really liked it

A book for Gen Xers about the 2018-2022 crisis, written back in 1997. Saddest thing about this book is that it gave people 10 years to prepare their communities but nothing got done on that level.

Extremely overwritten, but then you get to the good bits:

After Y2K fails to bring societal transformation, “More people will start rooting for something big to happen, something bad enough to shock the society out of its civic ennui"

“Where G.I.s “ac-cent-tchu-ated the positive,” Boomers are constantly ...more

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Jun 14, 2014 Linette rated it liked it

I actually finished! I thought I was never going to get to the end of this book.

Whilst I enjoyed the premise and I can see the archetypes I felt like Strauss and Howe belaboured the point. They made their point and then they made the same point again, and then they made the point in a different way and then they found another way to make their point.

I get it OKay!

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Apr 29, 2015 Johanna Dolan rated it it was amazing

I am IN LOVE with this book!! It explains my Gen X angst. It explains what is happening right now in the USA. And it offers HOPE for what is coming next! Fantastic book - you HAVE to read it.

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Aug 21, 2021 G.M. Burrow rated it really liked it

This book tells the future because it reads the past. Written in 1997, it predicted the chaos of the 21st century. They didn’t know exactly what the chaos would look like, but they knew it would come in the early 2000s, they predicted that it would last till about 2025/2030, and the possibilities were a terrorist attack, economic meltdown, a pandemic, and government overreach. Boom. 2001, terrorist attack. 2008, economic meltdown. 2020, pandemic and government overreach. And it ain’t over.

This This book tells the future because it reads the past. Written in 1997, it predicted the chaos of the 21st century. They didn’t know exactly what the chaos would look like, but they knew it would come in the early 2000s, they predicted that it would last till about 2025/2030, and the possibilities were a terrorist attack, economic meltdown, a pandemic, and government overreach. Boom. 2001, terrorist attack. 2008, economic meltdown. 2020, pandemic and government overreach. And it ain’t over.

This book is absolutely fantastic because its insight is so dang encouraging. Why? Because we know the crisis is right on schedule. A crisis hits every 80 years like clockwork. 80 years ago, WWII. 80 years before that, Civil War. 80 years before that, American War for Independence. And so on back they go, even hopping the continent and continuing back into the misty distance of British monarchs. It’s an Anglo cycle.

We also know how people will respond to a crisis. A crisis is a chance to remake the culture. America was fundamentally different after the War for Independence, the Civil War, and WWII. Not always for the better. So when the crisis of 2020 has you frustrated or worried, remember that you were born for this moment, God gave it to you, and here is our chance to fight for a new nation—one that remembers God.

On a more personal note, this book made my day because I have always been tempted to long for my grandfather’s war against Hitler. WWII just seemed like such a more important time to be alive. With evil that big and the lines drawn so stark, everything people did seemed charged with more significance. I wanted to go back and join that fight and felt guilty for having missed it. That’s crazy sauce and bad theology, but there you go. I learned contentment with my own decade, but then this book came along and made me sit up straight. This was it. I’m actually living in a crisis. This is my World War Two. This is the fight God called me to, and I know because He made me alive for it.

Everything we do now to worship God, fight for our freedoms, to repent of our national sins is charged with significance because however this crisis turns out, on the other side we know we will have a fundamentally changed America. Somebody will win this war and somebody will lose. ...more

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Mar 06, 2021 Joe Vasicek rated it liked it

This is probably going to be the longest 3-star review that I'm ever going to write.

Don't get me wrong. This is a very important book, perhaps one of the most important books of our time. Anyone who wants to understand why our world has gone so crazy and where we can expect things to go from here needs to read this book.

With that said, I found that this book falls frustratingly short. About 60% of the predictions are scarily accurate (for example, the authors predicted we would experience a "Gr This is probably going to be the longest 3-star review that I'm ever going to write.

Don't get me wrong. This is a very important book, perhaps one of the most important books of our time. Anyone who wants to understand why our world has gone so crazy and where we can expect things to go from here needs to read this book.

With that said, I found that this book falls frustratingly short. About 60% of the predictions are scarily accurate (for example, the authors predicted we would experience a "Great Devaluation" or major market crash in either 2002 or 2008; they were off by one year for the Dot Com crash, and right on the money for the Great Recession), but the other 40% of predictions are laughably wrong. The authors' characterization of the last three generations is heavy on myth and stereotype and shallow in real understanding (for example, they characterize the proto-2A movement as a group of "hobbyists"). The ideas in this book are brilliant, but on close inspection, they appear to be half-baked.

The book's central thesis is that "history shapes generations, and generations shape history." In other words, the generational cycle is key to understanding our history and predicting the course of future events. This cycle, known by the ancients as the saeculum, consists of four turnings or seasons, each lasting about the length of a human generation. The saeculum itself is the length of a long human life, which means that we all can expect to experience each of these turnings in our lifetimes. Each turning creates a different generational archetype, and the constellation of these archetypes is what determines the course of events within the turning.

Using this theory, the authors trace the history of the modern era back through seven Anglo-American saeculae, starting with the end of the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses up to the late 90s, when the book was originally published. However, the authors claim that history before this time was chaotic rather than cyclical, and thus did not produce a secular dynamic. This was the first red flag to me, since it smacks of dismissing data that does not fit the theory, rather than adjusting the theory to fit the data.

The main area where I believe the theory falls short is in how rigidly it defines the generational archetypes. For example, because the protestant reformation, the second great awakening, and the so-called "conscientiousness revolution" of the 60s hippy era were all dominated by the generational prophet archetype, the authors portray all of these eras as broadly equivalent. In doing this, I believe they overlook some of the most critical pathologies of the 60s and 70s, and the boomer generation.

Instead, the theory needs an additional dimension, or set of dimensions, to explain the variance between generational archetypes of different eras. For example, the boomer generation was much more materialistic than spiritual, and the GI generation was much more collectivistic than individualistic, whereas the same generational archetypes from previous saeculae (the transcendental and republican generations respectively) were exactly the reverse.

Another area in which the theory falls short is in explaining how societies occasionally fracture, or merge, and how this fits into the secular cycle. This phenomenon is implicitly acknowledged by the fact that the seven Anglo-American saeculae become completely US-centric after the revolutionary war. Clearly, the US and Great Britain branched off at some point in this secular history, but the authors never explicitly discuss this fact, or how it happened. Likewise, the last two saeculae have included a sizeable non-anglo immigrant contingent, and while the authors do acknowledge this fact, they don't go into any depth about it.

What I noticed in reading their discussion of history was that when a society splits, the seeds of that split tend to be sown in an Awakening era, and when different societies merge, that process tend to have its roots in the Crisis era. This explains the difficulty in tracing any sort of secular cycle in English history and culture before the Hundred Years War, as before that time, medieval society was much more fragmented and localized. It's not an accident that it took a multi-generational war to forge the English people into a single nation, and thus kick off the modern era. Likewise, it's not an accident that the classical ancient era (which we can divide into saeculae) came to an end with the fragmentation and collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

In short, my greatest criticism of this book is that it seems to be describing a three-dimensional object in two-dimensional terms, the way a map tries to describe our spherical world. It gets a lot of things right, but it also suffers from distortions and inaccuracies, especially on the edges.

Generally, I found that the most pessimistic predictions of this book were the ones that proved most accurate, where the optimistic predictions fell furthest from the mark. That in itself is quite terrifying. According to the theory, we've already passed the climax of our current crisis era, but I still feel that we have a long way to go before we hit rock bottom, and am skeptical that the next secular high will begin anytime before 2030, if it comes at all. At this point, it seems much more likely that our society will permanently fragment, but of course I could be wrong.

Regardless, this is a tremendously important book that deserves careful study and scrutiny, despite what I perceive as its flaws. I would really like to see a book that builds on these ideas and incorporates them into a more expansive theory, as I described above. ...more

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Aug 05, 2019 John Chamberlain rated it it was ok

Feeling annoyed, might delete later ;)

Our book, "The Fourth Turning" demonstrates history happens in cycles and all that has happened before will happen again.

"Ah, ok. I'm sympathetic to that. There's definitely some patterns to history."

Based on the emphasis and events of each generation parents will change the focus that they give children and subsequent generations will demonstrate certain behaviors.

"Cool, I've thought about that myself. Really overprotective/thrifty/spiritual parents that ha ...more

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Nov 19, 2016 Meagan rated it it was amazing

I discovered this book because the theory presented in it was mentioned in passing in an article that I read shortly after the recent election. The book is just about 20 years old at this point, but it feels extremely relevant to the current moment in history. It also feels surprisingly personal to me, speaking to ideas and yearnings I thought were just my own, but may in fact be generational in a way I have not recognized before.

As I've read it, I've found that I can't stop thinking about it an I discovered this book because the theory presented in it was mentioned in passing in an article that I read shortly after the recent election. The book is just about 20 years old at this point, but it feels extremely relevant to the current moment in history. It also feels surprisingly personal to me, speaking to ideas and yearnings I thought were just my own, but may in fact be generational in a way I have not recognized before.

As I've read it, I've found that I can't stop thinking about it and talking about it to everyone. The authors present a theory of cultural progress and historical events driven by a set of four generational types that that recur in a predictable sequence. Because the repeating cycle is so long, it is not something that a person can really witness in his or her own lifetime. Even a person who lives to be 100 might see each of the four "seasons" only once and not see any of them repeat. Seeing the repetition requires studying history.

According to the authors' theory, we stand now on the precipice of a "Fourth Turning." Fourth Turnings are preceded by times of splintering, division, gridlock, "culture wars" over values that seem irreconcilable, and tribalism wherein people stop identifying with the large group (the whole nation), and identify mainly as members of small groups who share their own outlook. Sound familiar?

Fourth Turning crises that have occurred previously in American history include The American Revolution, The Civil War, and The Great Depression/World War II. Fourth Turnings are gateways in history. After we pass through them, things are radically different than in the past, and afterwards time is marked by "before the event" and "after the event."

I can't really comment on the quality of the scholarship in this book too much. While I know the broad strokes, I don't know enough detail about American and European history to verify all the bits and pieces. Also, being "social science," I know there is more fuzziness here than provable science. But the fact is, the book presented me with a whole new way of looking at what might be going on in history and culture. Whether you fully buy into it or not, I think a whole new way of thinking is a reading experience worth having. I would love to discuss this with a history scholar or really....anyone. Everyone I know should read this book and then discuss it with me! ...more

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Aug 25, 2017 Daniel Olshansky rated it liked it

I listened to the audiobook and would rate the book a 3.5 / 5 (rounded down rather than up).

The primary reason I enjoyed this book is due to the unique historical viewpoint it delivers which I've never heard before. It was a good long-term history lesson that concentrated on the last century, which is both the one I'm most interested in and the one I can relate to the most.

I'm extremely impressed by how William Strauss was able to predict the financial crisis. However, it's also worth mentioning ...more

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Mar 03, 2017 Joyce Reynolds-Ward rated it did not like it · review of another edition

What a bunch of utter bunkum. This book was part of a 90s-era spate of quasi-futurist attempts to project cyclical patterns on history in a time perceived to be a post-historical era. The authors ignore or try to handwave away the times the history doesn't fit their particular perspective, and they have a conservative cultural agenda they're trying to promote. It fits into the whole "change agent," "church growth theory" sort of speculation that came out of Fuller Theological Seminary in the 70s ...more

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Jan 09, 2010 Keith Akers rated it it was amazing

I approached this book initially very skeptically. My previous experience with "prophecy" was, as I vaguely recall, a book called "The Great Depression of the 1990's" or something like that. But the authors make a convincing case first, that each generation (they define generations in terms of contemporaries or cohorts) really does have a different character, and second, that this generational intermix would produce a major crisis in the U. S. sometime in the period 2005 - 2025.

A social crisis ...more

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About William Strauss

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“History is seasonal, and winter is coming.” — 4 likes

“Yet the great weakness of linear time is that it obliterates time's recurrence and thus cuts people off from the eternal—whether in nature, in each other, or in ourselves. When we deem our social destiny entirely self-directed and our personal lives self-made, we lose any sense of participating in a collective myth larger than ourselves. We cannot ritually join with those who come before or after us.” — 4 likes

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