The Fourth Turning
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend First came the postwar High, then the Awakening of the '60s and '70s, and now the Unraveling. This audacious and provocative book tells us what to expect just beyond the start of the next century. Are you ready for the Fourth Turning?Strauss and Howe will change the way you see the world--and your place in it. In The Fourth Turning, they apply their generational theories to the… Product details and pricing info |
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81 Customer Reviews Posted
- Everything Old is New Again
- Ancient Romans knew of the cyclical nature of advanced human societies. The word "cycle" is associated with the word saeculum, which is the length of a long human life, or the time it takes for all of society to renew itself - and forget what happened before, forget history.
In fact Roman historians noticed a strong correlation between good times, decadence, war, and rebirth and these cycles, which had a period of approximately 80 to 100 years. They also recognized that not every cycle had the same intensity, and same period, or frequency.
The Fourth Turning is brilliant, from the standpoint that these guys are insightful enough to go against mainstream thought, and expose the wisdom of the ages. Understanding universal laws that humans have known for probably thousands of years, only to be lost, and then found again.
Forget about Bush and Obama, they are merely reflections of society. To play political football and argue politics is for the fool. Reality is absolute, Natural Law governs the universe, Strauss and Howe have found and outlined one of the great aspects of complicated human systems - cycles, either accept reality, or get run over.
The last Saeculum: The great depression, winter from 1929 to 1945, American high, spring from 1945 to 1965, the "summer of love" awakening, summer from 1965 to 1983, culture wars, autumn from 1985 to 2005, collapse, winter from 2005 to 2025.
Each cycle contains a crisis (winter), collectivism and conformance(spring), awakening, like the 60's movement, complacency begins to set in, people take success of society for granted, looting of society (autumn), and nothing left to loot (winter) period.
During winter people will not be able to depend upon the government, it will be broke. Those of the mind that have real skills and proper values will rebuild society from the ground up, and the cycle will begin again.
We are entering winter, who can disagree? America has been completely looted; this happened due to complacency, then decadence, looting then follows.
Read the Fourth Turning, the observations are obvious once it is explained.
Good luck! - 2008-12-28, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- An absolutely brilliant book!
- My short description hardly begins to do it justice, but Strauss and Howe have authored an absolutely brilliant book that will change the way in which we view history and our place in it. If we look back in time, we see that a great depression, followed by a major war, has occurred roughly every 80 years for the last several hundred years. We know that the history of human progress is not chaotic--it has order. We are taught that history advances along a linear timeline, but intuitively, we know this is not quite right. The authors make the case that modern history moves in ever advancing but repetitive cycles, each one lasting about 80 years, the length of a long human life. Each cycle is composed of four different generations. Taking the most recent cycle as an example, it begins with the G.I. generation (heroes), followed by the silent generation (conformists), followed by the baby boomers (self-indulgent and rebellious), and followed by Generation X (neglected but pragmatic). These four generations propel us through the four stages of a cycle, the survival of a great crisis, followed by confident expansion of the new order, followed by rebellion against the established order, followed by total individualism and a crumbling of order. Society gradually unravels until the next great crisis is thrust upon it, which begins the cycle anew. A debate continues amongst historians as to whether historical cycles do indeed occur. This book makes an overwhelming case for them, using fascinating and captivating arguments right out of the history books.
- 2008-12-25, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- History Looked at Scientifically
- I first read "The Fourth Turning" after seeing the authors on TV after the 9/11 attacks. I enjoy reading about history and found the book quite interesting in that it wasn't a history book per se, but a look at historical events and society's reaction to those events. It not a book that you can read and look into the future and know what is going to happen. I have since re-read the book twice, once in 2006 leading up to the elections and again right after the 2008 election. I find it quite amazing that the reviews that give the book only 1 or 2 stars that were written in 2000-2001 panned the book because they could not or did not see some of the things occurring and the general mood of the country changing.
With the economic situation we have in December of 2008 how many news references have we seen that compares today with the 1930's? By 2008, we can see that the millennial generation is, by and large, a generation of good kids following the rules. More so than my generation (13er). Drug use is down, abortions are down, crime rate down. They are the generation fighting a war in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are not protesting the war on college campuses. They may not agree with the war, but the majority of anti-war protests are organized and run by older Americans (Boomers?) and even those protest have been small and, really, insignificant. These kids have overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama. They have turned out to support him when, as young adults, other generations' support for presidential candidates has been lukewarm at best. Obama has continually been compared to Lincoln and FDR, the two presidents during America's prior 4th Turnings.
Is the book perfect? No. Do the authors sometimes overgeneralize? Yes. But overall, their theory is quite plausible and over the course of the last eight years, I can see their theory occurring. After reading this book, newspaper articles that seemed benign now have a whole different twist if read through the prism of generational changes. If you enjoy reading history, this is book that looks at history from a different perspective. If your looking for a crystal ball book, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for insight as to why things happen, this is a most interesting book. - 2008-12-14, 0 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Life-Changing!
- Behind the Bible, this is one of the most life-changing books I have ever read! While the book is a solid academic work, it clearly spells out a warning of bad times coming from the perspective of the authors in the late 1990's. The vast majority of the predictions made toward the end of the book have come to pass.
This book is valuable on two fronts:
1. The warning that is imparted to the readers to prepare for the crisis that is almost upon us.
2. Understanding of how we were raised (no matter what your age) and what motivates us as we raise our children.
It is item #2 that differentiates this book from other boks that spell out dire warnings for our society. It is about understanding how we got here, how it is possible to get out of it, and how we'll get back here again in another lifetime. It is also about finding peace in the way one was raised (with all its positives and negatives) and understanding what motivated one's parents. It explains why people react to events and conditions they do they do and how as well as why those reactions to the same events change dramatically over time as generational makeup of society changes.
A must-read! I plan to buy more copies for my friends and family. - 2008-11-11, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Highly relevant
- Why are these guys not on Larry King or 60 Minutes or Glenn Beck? You can read all of the other reviews that discuss how accurate their forecasts are. Suffice to say the authors forecasted a crisis catylst "in 2008" with the advent of the "Great Devaluation". You've got to be kidding me! They wrote this book at the height of the go-go 90s...this was nonsense and heretical to write about a crises 10 years hence...yet here we are. Have you ever heard the word "crisis" and "Depression" and "panic" used so much in living memory?
I'm truly amazed at the accuracy of their forecasts.
One caveat...they didn't seem to forecast how tight the global markets would be to America in ten short years. The "Great Devaluation" is happening all over the planet because Wall Street figured out a way to push our mortgages and sense of home prices always going up (aka our delusions) all over the globe with a stroke of a mouse click - I guess I can't fault them for not predicting that. - 2008-10-23, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
