Neil Howe. The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023.
Ever since I read Generations (1991) by Neil Howe and William Strauss three decades ago, I have been fascinated by their cyclical theory of history. Strauss died in 2007, but Howe is still going strong. His latest book, The Fourth Turning Is Here, further refines the theory and applies it to more recent events.
I think this interpretation of history provides a lot of insight into where America is now and where it is likely to go. The future cannot be known with any precision, but the cyclical patterns identified by Howe and Strauss give us some useful clues. At least they alert us to possible futures that we may want to embrace or avoid.
In this post, I’ll lay out the theory, and then in later posts apply it to the current social situation, which Howe regards as a once-in-a-lifetime social crisis. As we will see, the Millennial Generation will have a lot to say about how the crisis is resolved, although all living generations have some role to play.
Personal and historical cycles
This theory asserts a relationship between phases of the human lifecycle and phases of historical cycles that also last about the length of a lifespan, about 80 to 100 years. Howe refers to these historical cycles with the Latin word “saeculum,” which the Romans applied both to long lifetimes and long periods of history. In Howe’s interpretation, we are in the final phase of the “Millennial Saeculum” that began at the end of World War II. The previous “Great Power Saeculum” extended from the end of the Civil War to 1945.
Ancient writers like Ibn Khaldun and modern historians like Arnold Toynbee both described repetitive patterns over such long periods. Toynbee “found the span of time between the start of one ‘general war’ and the start of the next to have averaged ninety-five years with a ‘surprising degree of coincidence’ across the millennia.”
But why should such cycles exist at all, especially in modern societies more preoccupied with linear progress? Why isn’t modern history just a story of continuous progress in technology, productivity, material prosperity, and so forth? The general answer is that change is rarely that continuous. “Our collective social life, as with so many rhythmic systems in nature, requires seasons of sudden change and radical uncertainty in order for us to thrive over time.” Periods of relative social stability are interrupted by social crises that require rapid institutional innovation and reform. After such a crisis, people try to conserve the new order until pressures for change build up again. That means that each generation is not just progressively different from the one before—better educated and more productive, for example—but each is situated differently in relation to major social events.
[I]magine that the society is suddenly hit by a Great Event (what sociologist Karl Mannheim called a “crystallizing moment”), some emergency, perhaps a war, so consequential that it transforms all of society’s members yet transforms them differently according to their phase-of-life responses.
For children, this response might be an awestruck respect for adults (and the desire to stay out of their way); for young adults, taking up arms and risking death to meet the enemy; for midlifers, organizing the troops and mobilizing society for maximum effort; for elders, setting strategy and clarifying the larger purpose.
Each generation is forever shaped by whatever is going on in society when they are growing up. Each generation also shapes later events by bringing their early experiences with them into later phases of the lifecycle. The interaction between historical change and personal change creates repetitive cycles, as explained below.
The four turnings
Each saeculum includes four “turnings,” which are analogous to the seasons of spring, summer, fall and winter. Each has a “characteristic social mood…reflecting a new shift in how people feel about themselves and behave toward each other.” Each turning lasts for about a quarter of the human life span. Howe divides the life span into the phases of youth, rising adulthood, midlife and elderhood. With each turning, each generation advances to the next phase of life. Each generation is shaped—especially as children—by the turnings it experiences, but each has its opportunity to shape events and moods as it ages. The interplay of turnings and generations creates four recurring types of generations, each with its own distinctive role in each of the four turnings. I’ll describe the turnings first, and then the generations.
The First Turning, analogous to spring, is a High. Howe describes it as “an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civil order implants and an old values regime decays.” This comes after the previous fourth turning, when society had to confront and surmount a serious social crisis. The most recent example of a High is the postwar period that followed the crisis period of the Great Depression and World War II. The High of the previous saeculum was the “Gilded Age” after the Civil War.
The Second Turning, analogous to summer, is an Awakening. This is “a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime.” The most recent example is the “Consciousness Revolution” of the 1960s and 70s—Howe dates it from 1964 to 1984. The Awakening of the previous saeculum was the one that historians call the “Third Great Awakening” (1886-1908), associated with both religious fundamentalism and the the more progressive Social Gospel movement. These spiritual or cultural revolutions occur regularly, but they catch most people by surprise. Why disturb the relative peace and prosperity of a High? A key reason is the appearance of a new generation, which has no memory of the previous crisis, no mandate to build more order, and greater freedom to explore an inner world of meaning, self expression and higher purpose.
The Third Turning, analogous to fall, is an Unraveling. This is “a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when the old civil order decays and the new values regime implants.” The Awakening era has generated enough new ideas and ideals to threaten existing institutions, without yet producing a consensus on institutional reform. The most recent example is the “Culture Wars” period (1984-2008). The Unraveling of the previous saeculum was the “World War I and Prohibition” era, when “opinions polarized around no-compromise cultural issues like alcohol, drugs, sex, immigration, and family life.”
The Fourth Turning, analogous to winter, is a Crisis, “a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civil order with a new one.” Obvious examples include the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Depression/World War II era (1929-1946). The last of those gave us bigger government, with its permanent military establishment and social welfare policies. Now The Fourth Turning Is Here. Howe dates the most recent Crisis from the Great Recession of 2008, and he expects it to end sometime in the 2030s. The economy has recovered, for now, but we still face extreme inequality, debt-fueled spending, shrinking world trade, political gridlock, climate change, and rising threats to democracy at home and abroad. But like previous long cycles, it may just be the winter before the spring. “If the current Fourth Turning ends well, America will be able to enjoy its next golden age, or at least an era that will feel like a golden age to those who build it.”
The four generational archetypes
In this theory of cycles, both generations and turnings are approximately the same length as a quarter of the life cycle. The exact dating of generations and turnings depends on finding a good fit between the two. “The leading edge of every generation…emerges from infancy and becomes aware of the world just as society is entering one of these eras.” Then it enters “rising adulthood” just before the following era. The Boomers started being born just before the end of World War II and entered adulthood just in time to help create the “Consciousness Revolution” of 1964-1984. Howe gets the best fit by dating their births from 1943, rather than using the more traditional 1946, the year when birth rates spiked.
The Four Turnings shape the character of four generational archetypes, which in turn shape subsequent turnings. The Hero type is born during an Unraveling, and then enters adulthood during a Crisis. The Hero generation we know best is the G.I. Generation (born 1901-1924), which has become known as the “Greatest Generation.” “We remember Heroes best for their collective coming-of-age triumphs…and for their worldly achievements as elders.” Being born in an Unraveling has the advantage that parents often go out of their way to protect their children from the cultural storms that are raging, which encourages the new generation to be cooperative and respectful. Once the Unraveling and Crisis have past, Heroes preside over the reformed institutional order they have helped build. The G.I. Generation presided literally, providing the string of seven U.S. presidents that held office from 1961-1992. Now Howe classifies the Millennial Generation (born 1982 to 2005—the latter date is a little uncertain) as a new Hero type, although it remains to be seen if they will live up to their advance billing.
The Artist type is born during a Crisis, and then enters adulthood during the following High. The Artist generation we know best is the Silent Generation (born 1925-1942). “We remember Artists best for their quiet years of rising adulthood…and their midlife years of flexible, consensus-building leadership.” Protected to the point of suffocation during the Crisis, they grow up cautiously conforming to the expectations of the institution-building older generation. In midlife the Silent have been sandwiched between more powerful G.I.s and more passionate Boomers, making them somewhat indecisive and conciliatory. Howe expects the children being born into the current Crisis—he calls them Homelanders—to be similar. Skipped over for the presidency for many years, the Silent finally got their one president, Joe Biden (born 1942).
The Prophet type is born during a High, and then enters adulthood during an Awakening. The Prophet generation we know all too well is the Boom Generation (born 1943-1960). “We remember Prophets best for their coming-of-age passion…and their principled stewardship as elders.” Prophets experience easygoing, indulgent parenting and develop high standards of personal fulfillment. They are very critical of flaws in social institutions, such as poverty, racism, sexism and environmental degradation. They tend to become the midlife moralists and culture warriors of the Unraveling era, but they can also provide inspiration for the next Hero generation. According to Howe’s dating, Boomers have produced three presidents—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.
The Nomad type is born during an Awakening, and then enters adulthood during an Unraveling. That includes Generation X (born 1961-1981). “We remember Nomads best for their rising-adult years of hell-raising.” Why hell-raising? Because the cultural upheaval of an Awakening is probably the worst time to be parented. During the Consciousness Revolution, parents were distracted by their new opportunities for self-fulfillment, and the sudden revolution in sexual and gender norms led to a surge in divorce. Generation X tended to become rootless and rather alienated from social institutions, contributing to the Unraveling that began in the 1980s. In a Crisis, however, they may become pragmatic leaders doing whatever needs to be done to survive, such as leading troops in battle. Barack Obama (born 1961) is Generation X by Howe’s dating, although a Boomer by more conventional dating.
Generational configurations and endowments
Each of the four turnings has its own distinctive generational configuration. During an Awakening like the Consciousness Revolution, Heroes are entering elderhood, Artists are entering midlife, Prophets are entering adulthood, and Nomads are being born. This is a formula for generational conflict, as elders who are committed to the existing order confront young Prophets who are raising new moral issues and demanding more personal freedom. This was the situation when Hero presidents Johnson and Nixon ordered up the Vietnam War and young Prophets responded with moral indignation. During a Crisis, the generational types are reversed, with Prophets entering elderhood, Nomads entering midlife, Heroes entering adulthood, and Artists being born. When the elder Prophet Franklin Roosevelt told the country what it needed to do, young Heroes signed up for service, whether in the WPA, Civilian Conservation Corps, or military service.
Finally, each generation has its own endowment of qualities that it brings to society. For Heroes, they lie in the area of “community, affluence, and technology”; for Artists, “pluralism, expertise, and due process”; for Prophets, “vision, values, and religion”; and for Nomads, “liberty, survival, and honor.” As each older generation dies off, a new generation growing up under similar circumstances can compensate by providing a similar endowment. In our time, the loss of the G.I Generation has created a vacuum in institutional organization and leadership that the Millennial Generation should be able to fill. As the current Crisis unfolds, the result may be a sudden shift away from individualism and culture wars and toward teamwork and social cooperation. Howe says that “every generation usually turns out to be just what society needs when it first appears and makes its mark.” And since the turnings occur within a long cycle that is about the length of a lifetime, each turning is a once-in-a-lifetime experience—and opportunity—for every living generation.
Beneath the Surface 