The Fourth Turning

The Fourth Turning will change our perspective on the world - and our place within it. Celebrated bestselling authors William Strauss and Neil Howe take a remarkable look back 500 years in American history and discover a clear pattern: modern history unfolds in cycles, each lasting about as long as a human life, and each consisting of four eras - or "Turnings" - that last approximately 20 years and always occur in the same order. In their visionary book, the authors illustrate these cycles through a brilliant analysis of the post-World War II era.

A high, a period of confident expansion where a new order takes root after the old one has been swept away, is followed by an awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion against the now-established order. This is followed by a crisis, an increasingly restless era where individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Finally, there comes the crisis - the fourth turning - when society passes through a significant and dangerous gateway of history. Together, the four turnings create a rhythm of growth, maturation, decline, and rebirth in history. Strauss and Howe see us in the final stretch of the last phase, the crisis.

No matter which generation you belong to or what phase of life you are currently in, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how we can all, individually and collectively, prepare for the next rendezvous with destiny.