The Fourth Turning
Strauss and Howe propose recurring generational patterns culminating in crises, a model whose predictive claims remain disputed.
The theory organises history through recurring generational archetypes.
A generational story can make confusing events feel ordered. The authors connect formative experiences with later public roles, but the neatness of the pattern is also what needs testing.
A social cycle contains a high, awakening, unravelling, and crisis.
Generations supposedly acquire different orientations from formative conditions.
Their changing ages then alter public institutions and expectations.
A fourth turning marks a period of major collective reorganisation.
People born near one another do not share one life. Differences of class, place, and circumstance complicate the framework, and a proposed cycle should not become a clock announcing inevitable crisis.
The authors interpret earlier American episodes through this pattern.
Selection of dates and examples affects its apparent fit.
Generation-wide claims can obscure enormous variation within groups.
The cycle is not an established historical law or reliable clock.
Its central theme concerns interactions between formative experience and institutional change.