In 1997, historians William Strauss and Neil Howe published “The Fourth Turning,” a cyclical theory of Anglo-American history built around generational archetypes and recurring saecular rhythms of approximately 80 to 100 years — roughly the length of a long human life.
Their framework identified four “turnings,” each lasting roughly 20 to 25 years, that repeat in sequence.
The First Turning, the High, is an era of institutional confidence and community solidarity following a great crisis. The rules work, people trust them, conformity is rewarded — think the post-WWII boom, or the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
The Second Turning, the Awakening, is a spiritual and cultural awakening that challenges the institutional consensus of the High. Individualism resurges; the establishment is questioned — the consciousness revolution of the 1960s-70s, the Second Great Awakening of the 1820s-30s.
The Third Turning, the Unraveling, sees institutions weaken, individualism reach its apex, and civic order decay. Trust collapses — in government, media, corporations, each other — as it did through the Culture Wars era of the 1980s-90s, or the Gilded Age of the 1870s-90s.
The Fourth Turning, the Crisis, is a decisive era of institutional destruction and reconstruction, typically catalysed by an existential threat — war, economic collapse, or civilisational rupture. The old order is swept away; a new one is forged. The Great Depression and WWII. The Civil War. The American Revolution.
“History is seasonal, and winter is coming.”
— William Strauss and Neil Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997
