The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny

As The Fourth Turning was published in 1997, Chapter 10 begins the prophetic portion of the book. The authors use this chapter to provide a broad list of plausible scenarios that could take place in the upcoming crisis era and serve as its catalyst. These scenarios, ranging from a financial crisis and cyberterrorism to a global terrorist attack and a worldwide pandemic, reinforce the theme of doom in the book’s brief final chapters. The authors also touch upon a list of plausible scenarios that they describe as possible “molten ingredients of the climax” (277). These include economic distress involving debt default, entitlement bankruptcy, trade wars, and poverty; social distress involving violence fueled by race, class, religion, or nativism; cultural distress involving issues of state censorship; ecological distress involving atmospheric damage, energy and water shortages, and new diseases; political distress involving secessionism, tax revolts, authoritarianism, and constitutional challenges; and military distress involving wars against foreign and domestic terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.

The theme of seasonality arises late in Chapter 10, with the authors once again symbolically comparing the saeculum’s fourth turning crisis to winter. They argue that “[O]f all the four turnings, none spends its energy more completely than a crisis, and none has its end more welcomed. In nature, the frigid darkness serves a vital purpose, but only to enable what follows” (299). In closing the chapter, the authors touch upon the theme of doom once more and transition to Part 3 of the book by stating that “[T]he course of our national and personal destinies will depend in large measure on what we do now, as a society and as individuals, to prepare” (302). 

Part 3 of the book begins with Chapter 11, titled “Preparing for the Fourth Turning.” The chapter is straightforward in providing the author’s recommendations for preparation, while also expounding upon all three of the book’s themes. The chapter opens with a reference to Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8, “[T]o every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (305). According to Strauss and Howe, the same seasonal principle implied in the scripture applies to the saeculum: “Cyclical time teaches you not just to accept the rhythms of history, but to look for ways to make use of them, to fulfill your role in those rhythms as best you can” (305). In order to prepare for the fourth turning, they argue, America needs old thinking—the rejection of linearism they discussed in the book’s introductory chapter.

The first recommendation concerns the individual’s and the nation’s ability to move with, not against, the seasons. What the authors mean by this is that we should participate in seasonal activities by taking advantage of the current turning, avoid postseasonal behavior by ending habits that were appropriate in the prior turning but not for the current one, and make preseasonal preparations by trying to anticipate the needs and opportunities of the next turning. In order to correctly take these actions, returning to the acceptance of cyclical time is critical, as is understanding the seasonality of history. The authors state that the upcoming fourth turning “will trigger a political upheaval beyond anything Americans could today imagine” (313).

The final chapter of The Fourth Turning serves as a closing argument for authors Strauss and Howe concerning their theory of turnings. While not making a bold prediction for exactly what will transpire in the fourth turning, they do stress that many of the outcomes could be disastrous. However, it’s also possible that the fourth turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum, finding America even better in the first turning of the following saeculum. The chapter also emphasizes all three of the work’s primary themes: time as cyclical rather than linear, the seasonality of life and history, and the impending doom that might be just around the corner for America. Expressing the need for America to return to thinking of time as cyclical in order to understand generational aging and turnings, the authors state that “[M]odern societies too often reject circles for straight lines between starts and finishes” (329). Accepting time as cyclical also leads to thinking of history and life as seasonal because it rejects unidirectional history and allows linkages between generations.

Given that so much of The Fourth Turning involves preparing for the then-future, it’s reasonable to ask how well the authors’ arguments about that future ultimately held up. Several of the events the authors identify as possible catalysts or contributors to the climax do map neatly onto real-world history: a major terrorist attack in the form of 9/11, two financial crises in 2007 and 2020, the global pandemic of Covid-19, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and ensuing domestic discontent, increased nativism surrounding the 2016 election of Donald Trump, protests against police brutality and racist violence that culminated in 2020, etc.

One could of course argue that Strauss and Howe identify so many possible categories of catastrophic events that they were bound to be correct in some instances. A deeper question, however, involves which events we apply the authors’ lens to. For example, if we consider 9/11 the catalyst, we might see the climax as popular discontent with the Iraq War culminating in the resolution of Barack Obama’s election. By contrast, if we consider the 2007 financial crisis the catalyst, we might see the climax as Donald Trump’s election. Perhaps in hindsight it will become clearer how The Fourth Turning applies to early 21st-century history, but this ambiguity suggests that Strauss and Howe’s reading of history is to some extent subjective. That does not mean it is without merit, however. As Strauss and Howe make clear in their discussion of cyclical versus linear time, different interpretations of historical events serve particular purposes. Strauss and Howe’s interpretation is one such lens we can use to think about the broad, repetitive patterns that structure American history, even if we disagree about some of the details.