The Fourth Turning | William Strauss, Neil Howe | Winter came early this saeculum....

The Fourth Turning | William Strauss, Neil Howe | It will challenge you

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The Fourth Turning

	The Fourth Turning William Strauss, Neil Howe Broadway, 1997 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 81 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Winter came early this saeculum....

Somehow I missed this book when it first came out- too much was happening in my personal life I guess. Yet, I'm glad that I waited until now to read it, for it serves to verify much that I came to discover on my own from both personal experience and from reading such diverse works as those of the Taoist Sages and Marcus Aurelius. For this is a book of Great Cycles, rooted in the ancient traditional concept of large and small recurrent cycles to human history, as well as to nature.

This book speaks of the Saeculum, to use the ancient term, the great cycles that stretch approximately the span of one long human life. There have been seven of these in the last 500 years of "modern" history. Each of these large cycles is divided into four parts, or "turnings." Think of them as generational seasons. And then each of these generational turnings is associated with one of the four classical human archetypes (prophet, nomad, hero, and artist.)

When you examine the individual Saeculi you realize that everything has happened before. Time is neither uniquely chaotic, nor is it linear. The same pattern of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth occur again and again. The historical documentation is exhaustive- this book serves the secondary function of being an excellent review of Anglo-American history.

It is more than that, though- it is a predictor of what to expect in the rapidly approaching winter or Fourth Turning. Of course, it now looks like winter came too early, for we are trying to cope with it using the techniques and tools of the Third Turning of unraveling and culture war. What we need are the elder statesman or prophets that have guided and inspired us through all our previous periods of crisis. We need our next generation of heroes to come of age. We need time for Merlin to find and teach Arthur. But first, we need the return of the Gray Champion to herald the age.

One other thing, before one becomes too comfortable with the idea that we've always come out of these cycles stronger than the one before, it is best to reflect that Fourth Turnings mean Total War- and we have nuclear devices and material in global abundance....

By the way, the excellent charts and tables make the concepts in the text very easy to rapidly digest.

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It will challenge you

In 1992, Messrs Strauss and Howe published their groundbreaking book, Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069, and I was immediately captivated. In 1997, the authors refined their theories with the publication of this book. In this book the authors explain, in a thoroughgoing way, their theory of generational change, and how it has played out throughout American and British history, back to the Wars of the Roses in the fifteenth century.

In the authors' theory, American and British (though mostly American) society goes moves along through a series of four seasons, creating a succession of four archetypal generation-types. Also, as history makes people, people make history, and the constellation of generations interprets the events in their world, reacting in the form of the four seasons. Tracing this march of generations across history, they admirably show the past is indeed prologue, and America is heading towards another seasonal change, as the nation moves once again into a Crisis mentality.

Now, the first complaint that is liable to be leveled against this book is that it posits an inescapably mechanistic view of history. However, the authors are careful to show that human nature can break their suggested cycle, and that it has happened in the past.

Overall, I found this to be a very convincing book, one that has revolutionized my entire view of American history! Yes, I am a convert to the Generations view of history, and cannot wait to see how things are likely to change in the near future. If you want a book that will revolutionize your whole way of looking at history, then I highly recommend that you get this book. It will challenge you and make sure that you never look at events the same.

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Sweeping, compelling, and quite readable

I picked up a copy of "The Fourth Turning" because to refresh myself on the generational differences of donors. I was hoping to help a colleague wrestle with how to apply fundraising techniques with attention to these cohorts. Having read the authors' 13th Gen a few years ago, I knew this would be an erudite review. I got what I was looking for and much more! "The Fourth Turning" is actually a compelling look at human history, especially Western history since the middle of the fifteenth century!

Howe and Strauss have amazingly taken the most recent 20th century generations (GI, Silent, Boomer, Xer, and Millennial) and found corresponding generations for the last few hundred years. From this, they've developed a convincing rubric of generational archetypes-GIs and Millennials are the "Hero," Silents are the "Artist," Boomers are the "Prophet," and Xers are the "Nomad." Moreover, they've revisited the millennia old theory that time moves through seasons in a cyclical pattern, one that corresponds with the seasons of the year. The post-WWII era was our "High" or spring; the Consciousness Revolution was our "Awakening" or summer; the 80's and 90's was our "Unraveling" or fall; and we're currently headed for our "Crisis" or winter. They chose to label the seasons "turnings" and the time encompassing the four turnings as the "saecula," a label used by the ancients that roughly corresponds to a century.

With an amazing attention to detail, a scholarly eye to history, and a wonderfully readable writing style, Howe and Strauss show the interplay of the generational archetypes and the turnings. For example, they point to the similarities of the spiritual emphasis of the 1960s and 1970s with the Transcendentalists of the 1800s, the Great Awakening of the 1700s, and the Puritan Awakening of the 1600s, and the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s!

"The Fourth Turning" will definitely affect the way you view history as well as the events of today. Though written in 1997, they illustrate "highly unlikely" scenarios that might precipitate the coming Crisis such as: "A global terrorist group blows up an aircraft and announces it possesses portable nuclear weapons. The United States and its allies launch a preemptive strike. The terrorists threaten to retaliate against an American city..."!

While I don't know if we're currently into the Crisis or not, I do know that "The Fourth Turning" is a must read for anyone trying to raise money in today's economic environment. Not only will the savvy fundraiser ferret out ways to frame their case for the different generations, she will also see how different turnings may affect fundraising efforts. If we are indeed heading for a fourth turning, and Howe and Strauss make that highly believable, I think we in the nonprofit world are uniquely situated to help our cultures ride out this winter and successfully enter the spring.

Although full of grim warnings, "The Fourth Turning" is a hope-filled book well worth reading.

CONTENTS:

1. Winter Comes Again

PART I: Seasons
2. Seasons of Time
3. Seasons of Life
4. Cycles of History
5. Gray Champions

PART II: Turnings
6. The First Turning: American High (1946-1964)
7. The Second Turning: Consciousness Revolution (1964-1984)
8. The Third Turning: Culture Wars (1984-2005?)
9. Fourth Turnings in History
10. A Fourth Turning Prophecy

PART III: Preparations
11. Preparing for the Fourth Turning
12. The Eternal Return

Acknowledgements
Notes
Index of Names

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, page 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

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