The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy

This book builds on the theory that history is cyclical, repeating after four 'turns,' each lasting 20-25 years. The first turn is the high, a period of relief after a crisis has ended. The second turning is an awakening, when people start to get back to reality after the high. The third turning is an unraveling, in which people are unhappy with the way things were in the previous two turnings and are now becoming pessimistic about the future. Finally, the fourth turning is a crisis; some unexpected major event that will involve everyone and completely change the way people think from before the crisis occurred to after it ends. Then the cycle begins again with a new high.Each turning is led by a generational archetype, also cyclical. The high is led by an Artist generation. The awakening by a prophet generation. The unraveling by a nomad generation. And last, the crisis by a hero generation. The artists of the high are coming to adulthood after a crisis has ended and enjoy their adult years in the best times. As the prophets enter adulthood, they begin to see a more realistic world with problems to come. The nomads enter adulthood in a time when attitudes are beginning to change for the worst and optimism is fading. And then a major crisis occurs, which the hero generation must solve and the cycle is ended.The authors use historical events in American history to prove the theory. The American Revolution ended almost exactly 80 years before the Civil War ended, and the Civil War ended close to 80 years before World War II ended. So, from that, the authors predicted the next major crisis would occur sometime near 2005, except that is actually less than 70 years after World War II started. Makes sens to the authors. I see some problems with this theory. First, the author ignores some major crises that occurred at the 'wrong' time. The War of 1812 saw the fledgling United States go into its first test and emerge victorious, solidifying itself as a young country, capable of fighting for itself. World War I saw a new country joining allies overseas and emerging as a new world power. The Vietnam Conflict saw American citizens rise up in protest of a war for the first time. Each of those easily fits the qualifications the authors gave for a major crisis; the crisis involved everyone, and the country went into the crisis much differently than it emerged from that crisis after it was over.What I liked about this book was the authors took important events throughout history and explained them from the point of view of four different generations; the children, the young adults, the mid-life adult leaders, and the elderly. I have never looked at history this way and I found it very interesting. I believe if the authors had written the entire book this way instead of trying to force it into a theoretical cyclical construct it would have been a much better book, and the authors' predictions about the future might have been more accurate.Strauss and Howe predicted in 1997 that the next major crisis would start somewhere near 2005. You could say that the attack of Sept 11, 2001 was that crisis, but other than the timing, it doesn't really fit the rest of the requirements. While it did involve everyone, at least in our way of thinking about the safety of our country, that really didn't last long and did not change our way of life much at all, even for a short time, except maybe our air travel. And they gave descriptions of the coming generations. While the authors gave fairly accurate descriptions of the baby boomer and generation X generations, they missed badly when talking about the Millenials and Centennials. That's understandable, though, because the oldes Millenials were still teenagers and the Centennials were not quite born yet when the book was written.So I don't believe the cyclical history is quite right, but I did still like the book because of the way history was described from the points of view of various generations. Very interesting.

Overall, this book was very good, thorough and well-written. The only complaint I have is that it gets pretty repetitive at various points. I understand that this is to drive home the point and to relate the past to the present, but at some points, it seemed like just filler.The content of this book is astounding. I just picked it up this year (2018) and the book was written over two decades ago. The breakdown in American politics and society that the authors mention for the unraveling era are alive and present. The older boomer generation pushing for "action" and wanting the young to dedicate themselves toward a path of war is ever present (even after two seemingly never ending wars in the last 13 years). There were some predictions that were wrong, such as the spirit of the millennial group, but all in all, it's a frighteningly accurate prediction.The authors give good ideas on how we can prepare for the 4th Turning bother socio-politically and on an individual level. I'm not holding my breath on society preparing itself and I have even less hope for politicians to do so. Preparation is for the individual as far as I'm concerned.This is the kind of book that you want to share with everyone you care about and even with the public in general, but unfortunately it's not something most people will care about until it's too late.If you're thinking of getting this book, get it asap, try to complete it within a month's time, share it with those you care about and then make a plan of action to ready yourself for the 4th Turning.

I read this book because I am a big proponent of economic influenced cycles, particularly Elliot wave, Kondratieff and Martin Armstrong. So, this book was on my bucket list of books to read. This book has a more eastern atavistic view on how to view history in terms of cycles and circularly instead of linearly, a more western based perspective. Particularly odd considering the authors William Strauss and Neil Howe are American WASPS. You would think they be more biased to a Western based linear approach but I am pleasantly surprised they see history as an Asian would in a cyclical perspective. Their seasonal theory posits that history goes through cycles of seasons as like nature goes through them (spring, summer, fall and winter). This explains a lot of my prior cyclical readings to economic and political cycles reappearing and now I know that the cause is the season reappearing and not just some magical mathematical based cyclical number reappearing after 80 years based on the number PI. This has more clarity and sense to me than nature based on a mathematical formula derived from PI. Who knows maybe they are both correct and integrated into Nature?Now to the major relevancy of this book being crucial to read in our current time. This book predicted the financial crisis of 2008 and in the book it calls it the Great Devaluation. It was off by three years as the book predicated the fourth turning starting in 2005. The morphology of a fourth turning seems to be on course as predicated by prior fourth turnings. A fourth turning morphology starts with a major financial crisis type event and climaxing with a war type denouement some 15-20 years later. So, fifteen to 20 years after the crisis of '08 comes our next war climax in 2023 to 2028. This gives us ample time to prepare. I for one am buying gold and bitcoin in my financial portfolio to prepare for the coming war crisis. I am specifically an archetype nomad 13er Generation X member and would probably live through the ekpyrosis into our new golden age HIgh, probably starting in the late 2020s/2030s. Hopefully my investments in bitcoin and gold payoff and the new civic order doesn't confiscate too much of my assets to pay off unpaid debts left over from our unraveling turning era. I also have noticed most major global wars are started from the left, as the conservatives or right want to keep the status quo. I think if we have a Democrat elected in 2020 a major global war might come sooner to us than if we re-elect Donald Trump in 2020, who is hesitant to start a war and is pulling troops out of the Middle East. Donald Trump and Barrack Obama might be the men blamed after this Crisis is done as the people who initiated this global war with their American troop withdrawals out of the middle east. Anyone else notice that these fourth turnings alternate between external (global) and internal (civil) wars in the Anglo-American Saeculum? For example, a list of fourth turning Anglo-American fourth turnings are Wars of the Roses (1459-1487), Armada Crisis (1569-1594), Glorious Revolution (1675-1704), American Revolution (1773-1794), Civil War (1860-1865), Great Depression and World War II (1929-1946) and finally our Millennial Crisis (2008-2029). Notice they alternate between internal and external wars every fourth turning. Maybe our next Millennial Crisis won't be an external global world war III type event but instead be a domestic civil war inside the USA. Imagine the warring feud of Antifa and the far right turning into a domestic civil war if Donald Trump refuses to give up the Presidency if Donald Trump doesn't accept the 2020 election results of a Democrat winning. This would be similar to the 2000 election of George Bush but what if Al Gore hadn't conceded the election results and decided to pursue and start a civil war? Maybe that scenario wouldn't have been as effective a fillip in an unraveling turning as it would be more effective to come to fruition in a fourth turning Crisis? A paroxysm of rage due to the contested election in this divided environment could be the spark that starts the fire of civil war.Read this book for yourself and judge and think for yourself and come to your own conclusions on what our fourth turning will be like. You won't be disappointed. This book was written in 1997 and is eerie in its prophecies. We live in a winter Saeculum turning and a redux of these types of Nostradamus prophecy books are all the rage. But the difference of Strauss and Howe's book between a new age book written by Edgar Cayce or Nostradamus is they have the sociological generational facts and numbers to substantiate their prophecies.

I bought this after a news article referenced it - not realising that it was written more than 20 years ago! When reading, you constantly have to adjust to a 20 year old perspective. Then you get to the prophetic parts of the book (which have now largely arrived but not the way prophesied). Dissatisfying.

While it is doubtful to say that this works is scientific, not least to its use of "prophesies" as a description of what one generation can expect from the next, it is nevertheless a compelling hypothesis that adolescents and adults absorb inputs and mold themselves around the world they come to inhabit, and that this likewise forms their outlook of the future and thus future society.Should you dismiss this approach to historical understanding and prediction, you will at least be delighted in a fairly broad treatment of the last few centuries of Western history (though American-centric and obviously heavily pop-cultural in its treatment of recent times), that shaped societies into what led us to be here today.

why history repeats, this book explains a lot.

All the more amazing to read this in 2013, as the Fourth Turning is reckoned by most to have started in 2008.A must read in my opinion. Hold on and get ready to start screaming!

Spot on