The Fourth Turning Is Here

What the Seasons of History Tell Us About How and When This Crisis Will End

By: Neil Howe

Narrated by: Neil Howe

The visionary behind the best-selling phenomenon The Fourth Turning looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in this startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civil unrest will resolve over the next 10 years—and what our lives will look like once it has.

Twenty-five years ago, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss dazzled the world with a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back at the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly 80 to 100 years, the length of a long human life, with each cycle composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about 25 years. The last of these eras—the fourth turning—was always the most perilous, a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization as traumatic and transformative as the New Deal and World War II, the Civil War, or the American Revolution.

Now, right on schedule, our own fourth turning has arrived. And so Neil Howe has returned with an extraordinary new prediction. What we see all around us—the polarization, the growing threat of civil conflict and global war—will culminate by the early 2030s in a climax that poses great danger and yet also holds great promise, perhaps even bringing on America’s next golden age. Every generation alive today will play a vital role in determining how this crisis is resolved, for good or ill.

Illuminating, sobering, yet ultimately empowering, The Fourth Turning Is Here takes you back into history and deep into the collective personality of each living generation to make sense of our current crisis, explore how all of us will be differently affected by the political, social, and economic challenges we’ll face in the decade to come, and reveal how our country, our communities, and our families can best prepare to meet these challenges head-on.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Neil Howe (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

"There is always profit in reading prophets…. The Fourth Turning Is Here is big history and bold futurology, and the closer it is to the present, the more reasonable it seems." —The Wall Street Journal

"Driven by a deep sense that American democracy is at serious risk… [yet Howe predicts that] out of today’s polarization and partisanship will come a new egalitarian, outward-facing, confident and unified America." —Francis Fukuyama, The New York Times

"Arresting, mind-opening, and endlessly stimulating, The Fourth Turning Is Here is a monumental achievement. It's a big, complex, challenging book, daunting in its sweep and erudition, but well worth the effort." —Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor and New York Times bestselling author of Political Tribes

Enjoyable - But ….

If this is your first exposure to Strauss and Howe’s generational theories you may find this interesting / for those familiar with their earlier work there is very little new here - perhaps 10% of the content - that said generational theory is fascinating and worth a listen for many

Very good Read but.....

This book was quite interesting. A few things to note. The politics of the author can come through I'm tht latter half of the book as long as you can parse this out it's great for anyone. That's where most will find fault with this book during this hyper polarization we're in. If you're very conservative this book well scare you.

So many unknown facts to consider.

This material will help me immensely improve my decisions in the future and interaction with other generations.

The scope and scale is impressive. The cycles that take a lifetime to see once are a master stroke of historic significance.

If everyone could come to see themselves as a part of the flow of history, I believe that the world would be better served. Thinking long term, inter-generationally provides a serious way to approach living your life. I have always felt that I missed the American High of the late 40’s through early 60’s. I find it somewhat comforting that should I survive the coming crisis, I may live through another version of spring.

Hopeful

It is easy to fall into the doomsday view of the world but even as the chances of the worst coming to pass seems to be increasing, it is comforting to know that we have been here before and will figure out a way forward.

Very thought provoking and applicable to life today if you think through what role you can or want to play in shaping the next seculum that will soon be upon us.

The accuracy of the observations.

A very comforting book for uncertain times. This should be required reading for all high school seniors.

Narrow-minded thought prison

The predictions in this book, underpinned by "The Principle of Rhythm", completely ignore the lush history of planned conflict, mindful social engineering projects, and especially the oldest form of alchemy...propaganda.

Excellent sequel to the first.

I read the original Fourth Turning about 12 years ago and it changed the way I viewed other generations. It assured me that everything that was happening at the time had happened repeatedly in sequence over the past 600 years or so.
This new book provides the same assurance. It’s not political or religious. It just lays out the facts and described in depth how history repeats itself, and why we view the world the way we do.

The first Fourth Turning book has stuck with me all these years. So when I saw a new one had been written, i jumped on it. I was not disappointed! Very insightful!

not impressed

spends most of his time reiterating and justifying his previous work but now it's got a leftist spin

An OK follow-up to the original

Way too much of the author’s political bias on display in this book. Completely unnecessary and off-putting to the listener.
Somewhat of an updated rehash of the original book.