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A review by nelswadycki
The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us about America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny by William Strauss, Neil Howe
2.0
I debated a lot between 3 and 4 stars, but decided to go with 4 since I think the authors made a convincing enough case that this book is worth reading. It would have been 5 stars if the case was truly compelling, but I really only think the takeaways can be had a fairly high level or you sort of have to read into it in order to gain some actionable insight.
I did find it interested to read it from a perspective of being 20 years from the publication date, and I think having seen the events of the past 1-16 years does lend additional credibility to the authors' "prophecy".
I also wanted to follow up to say that there is absolutely nothing political in here. I mean, they talk a lot about politics and its effects on various generations and how political life will potentially play out in the future, but there is nothing in here that says "Hey, Steve Bannon, here's how to destroy the American system of government." Like I said in the first part of this review, you have to really be willing to read a lot into or think about it from a high level and work out the connections yourself if you want to get anything truly actionable. Perhaps Mr. Bannon read it much closer to the publication date and after 2001 had the thought that the authors were dead on with their predictions and so he decided to see if he could manipulate the system to cause a catastrophic end to the Crisis period in which we find ourselves. If so, he's actually chosen quite a good time to do it, but again, there is nothing in here that directly says how it could be done or that it should be done. I think people on the other end of the political spectrum could get just as much out of this regarding how to save the country and bring about a positive end to the Crisis.
Final note, I didn't take off any stars (as I am wont to) for the fact that this is/was only available in hard copy; no eBook, no audio. I think the lack of audio makes sense since it would be somewhat challenging to translate a lot of the charts into spoken work format, and the eBook probably hasn't happened because there are a lot of references to charts on specific pages that would need to be reworked. So it's understandable even though it's also annoying.
I did find it interested to read it from a perspective of being 20 years from the publication date, and I think having seen the events of the past 1-16 years does lend additional credibility to the authors' "prophecy".
I also wanted to follow up to say that there is absolutely nothing political in here. I mean, they talk a lot about politics and its effects on various generations and how political life will potentially play out in the future, but there is nothing in here that says "Hey, Steve Bannon, here's how to destroy the American system of government." Like I said in the first part of this review, you have to really be willing to read a lot into or think about it from a high level and work out the connections yourself if you want to get anything truly actionable. Perhaps Mr. Bannon read it much closer to the publication date and after 2001 had the thought that the authors were dead on with their predictions and so he decided to see if he could manipulate the system to cause a catastrophic end to the Crisis period in which we find ourselves. If so, he's actually chosen quite a good time to do it, but again, there is nothing in here that directly says how it could be done or that it should be done. I think people on the other end of the political spectrum could get just as much out of this regarding how to save the country and bring about a positive end to the Crisis.
Final note, I didn't take off any stars (as I am wont to) for the fact that this is/was only available in hard copy; no eBook, no audio. I think the lack of audio makes sense since it would be somewhat challenging to translate a lot of the charts into spoken work format, and the eBook probably hasn't happened because there are a lot of references to charts on specific pages that would need to be reworked. So it's understandable even though it's also annoying.