# The Fourth Turning Authors: [[William Strauss]], [[Neil Howe]] ## Review _"History shapes generations, and generations shape history"_ _The Fourth Turning_^51830a The Fourth Turning examines Anglo-American history from the perspective of generational/[[Demographic Dynamics]]. The authors propose a theory that there are recurring generational archetypes which provides anglo-american history with a rhythm throughout history by influencing history and in turn being influenced by it. They believe understanding the characteristics of demographics is as important for history as understanding races, religions, economic classes, and political parties. ^fb2702 There are four generational archetypes. The archetypes influence history in consistent ways (creating the conditions for shaping the next archetype) and therefore always reappear in the same order. Each archetype is born during a period lasting around 18-25 years, which they call a turning. Four 'turnings' make up a seaculum which is the length of a long human life (80-100 years). The theory is more observational and they don't claim to know why this happens although the provide some possible reasons for why that might be. These include cycles in economic (in)equality, cycles in the protection of children, the duration of a human life and duration of adolescence. Below are the four archetypes and some description of each. - Hero : children of prophets and nomads. enters adulthood during crisis years. Teamwork and cooperation to accomplish big things. Build institutions and a boring consensus society. (G.I. ; Millenials) - Artist: children of heroes and nomads. Born during crises years and most overprotected generation. They become the technical experts in science and art. They enter adulthood when gender roles are well defined and family values are strong. (Silent ; Gen Z) - Prophet: Children of heroes and artists. They never experienced the crisis, and start to question the boring, stable, consensus world. They cause spiritual and religious uprisings in the search for _something more_, and individualism. (Boomers) - Nomad: Children of artists and prophets. They are the least parented generation, growing up in an era where individualism is strong but there is a lack of order and an inability to build consensus. (Gen X) The rest of the book goes into more detail and covers history from the perspective of these archetypes and how they influenced each other in significant detail. For example: They write about the G.I. generation (which is the same archetype as millenials) and how they grew up during the '29 crash, great depression, rise of unrest, communism and fascism and were forced to fight in WWII. They were comunitiarian and came together as a group, cooperating to defeat the elements of crises (whether economic or political). Their life was shaped to value consensus and cooperation and so they built the great institutions for cooperation -- the foundation of WHO, World Bank & IMF, NATO, UN etc. ### Criticism Unfortunately the book has become politicized because it is one of Steve Bannon's favourites and is considered right wing. The book is largely narrative driven and obviously picks events and stories selectively to help explain the theory. Its really impossible to know whether these demographic dynamics exist because there is no systematic evaluation of data. Just because there predictions seem to play out doesn't mean the theory is correct, although the ideas are still interesting and has also been identified by Peter Turchin as the father-and-son cycle. Another big downside of the book was its wordiness and use of hard words. They also repeat key ideas often. ### 20 years later Although there is a lack of data and a healthy dose of narrative, it is very well thought out. The book was written in 97 and the possible future events they lay out, which would have seemed very 'out there' at the time don't look so crazy now. These scenarios include a serious financial crisis, pandemic and war. They estimated the crisis would climax in the mid 2020s. Part of the reason this book is being talked about again now is likely because it was eerily prescient. [The wikipedia entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss–Howe_generational_theory) for the book is extensive and helpful. ## My Distillation _One of the purposes of books is to get exposed to interesting ideas. Those ideas can shape your thinking and provide the most value if you can create a synthesis across ideas. I don't fully subscribe to the ideas of The Fourth Turning (specifically the discrete archetypes) but below is my distilled takeaway of the book._ Generations can have common beliefs or characteristics. These generations influence society, economies and history in ways that then leads the next generation to have a different set of beliefs and characteristics based on the world they observe. Having grown up in a different world the successor generation cannot believe the same things as the previous, and at the extremes will revolt against some beliefs. Society is also influenced by the removal of the oldest generation and their characteristics. This is similar to a dynamical system (with memory?) that, through this process, can generate quasi-periodic cycles in certain variables such as: individualism communitarianism, or the power of capital vs the power of labour. The alignment of these variables can make historical periods very similar in terms of the human experience. The alignment of variables seems to be pointing to another period of crisis through the 2020s. We could learn from history in order to understand how today's generations will respond in the future. ## Related [[Demographics]], [[History]], [[Father and Son Cycle]], [[Hard times create strong men cycle]]