The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End

by Neil Howe

What typically occurs early in a Fourth Turning—the initial catalyzing event, the deepening loss of civic trust, the galvanizing of partisanship, the rise of creedal passions, and the scramble to reconstruct national policies and priorities—all this has already happened. The later and more eventful stages of a Fourth Turning still lie ahead. Every Fourth Turning unleashes social forces that push the nation, before the era is over, into a great national challenge: a single urgent test or threat that will draw all other problems into it and require the extraordinary mobilization of most Americans. We don’t yet know what this challenge is. Historically, it has nearly always been connected to the outcome of a major war either between America and foreign powers, or between different groups within America, or both.