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

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Crown, Jan 16, 2009 - History - 400 pages
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Discover the game-changing theory of the cycles of history and what past generations can teach us about living through times of upheaval—with deep insights into the roles that Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have to play.
 
First comes a High, a period of confident expansion. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion. Then comes an Unraveling, in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis—the Fourth Turning—when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history.

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 about how America’s past will predict what comes next.
 
Strauss and Howe base this vision on a provocative theory of American history. The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four twenty-year eras—or “turnings”—that comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth. Illustrating this cycle through a brilliant analysis of the post–World War II period, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for this rendezvous with destiny.
 

Contents

Winter Comes Again
1
Seasons of Time
25
Seasons of Life
53
Cycles of History
91
Gray Champions
139
American High 19461964
145
Consciousness Revolution 19641984
171
Culture Wars 19842005?
201
Fourth Turnings in History
254
A Fourth Turning Prophecy
272
Preparing for the Fourth Turning
305
The Eternal Return
329
Acknowledgments
337
Index of Names
367
Copyright

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About the author (2009)

William Strauss and Neil Howe are the authors of Generations: The History of America’s Future and 13th-GEN and founding partners of the consulting firm, LifeCourse Associates. Strauss was a renowned speaker, writer, historian, and playwright. He was also the co-founder of the Capitol Steps, a political cabaret. Howe is a historian and economist who speaks frequently on generations, the economy, and social change. He is also the managing director of demography at Hedgeye, president of Saeculum Research, and a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Global Aging Institute. Howe lives in Great Falls, Virginia.

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