Rating: 
Summary: Unwarranted Optimism
Review: I re-read this book the weekend after the attack on New York. William Strauss was a guest on Coast-to-Coast AM (a radio show) and I came away with a couple of thoughts.
First, They have very nicely described how history has a tendency to repeat, as Winston Churchill observed. I do not think the events in a period are the same as a generational response to those events.
We in the USA have spent the past 30+ years trying to abolish community, promote self-gratification, and generally raise a society of consumers bent on globalism. Witness the drastic decline in these generations' involvement in community groups like the Boy/Girl Scouts and other service organizations.
Gen-X (myself included), and the Millenium generation have had credentialism and materialism pounded into them. As several tv and radio pieces have shown, both groups are cynical and generally self-centered. The prediction that these people will rise to the level of the GI-Generation or those who died for the Cival War or Revolutionary causes is optimism taken to an extreme. The prediction of an era of conflict is probably inevitable. The prediction that we have the people today to do what was done in the past is probably fantasy. Where in the past "4th Turnings" was the experience of Korea, Viet Nam, the Cold War, Globalism, and an unrepentant consumer society? That will be pivotal this time around.
Overall, a good thought-provoking book. Just dont look for solid answers in it. I do recommend this book, it is a good read, and worth the time. Another take on "the farther back you look, the further ahead you can see..."
Rating: 
Summary: The Book That Saw The Future
Review: Strauss and Howe wrote this book in the 1990s about America's crisis points in history (among them - The Revolutionary War, Civil War, and the Great Depression/WWII). In doing so, they showed how each crisis comes at about a 70 year interval - approximately the length of a human life. The reason, they surmise, is that each 70 years includes a full set of human generations - four groups that each approach life differently.
In writing about the past crises, they also forecasted the next one, which they said would come after the start of the century, would be an extension of earlier problems but would still come as a surprise to us because of its scope, and would be something that "turned" our society around after a period of decline and made it stronger. If September 11, 2001 wasn't that crisis, I hate to see what's coming next.
The good news? Strauss and Howe say the high school generation of today is a replica of the "greatest generation" that got us out of World War Two.
If you really want to understand what's going to happen to this country in the next few years and how we'll react, this is the book.
Rating:
Summary: MAKES NOSTRADAMUS LOOK LIKE AN AMATEUR
Review: At the urging of my uncle, I read this book back in 1999.
In light of the horrific murders of Sep 11, 2001 in New York,
Washington, and Pennsylvania, it takes on a chilling tone.
Rating: 
Summary: It is the 4th Turning
Review: I read this book over a year ago and after this recent terrorist incident, I pulled it off the shelf and looked up the chapter on the fourth turning. It was almost prophetic. The previous chapter discusses an unraveling in American history, lack of morality, an unraveling of society, norms, and customs, decadence in basic courtesy and customs. This then leads or leaves open a potential for a cataclysmic event which revives the American Spirit and a revival of common customs and courtesies. Just witnessing the generosity and pulling together of the american people in helping and assisting the victims is overwhelming. A revival of the patriotic spirit has come about. I am rereading this book and I am highly recommending it to others to read also. At the time I read this book I doubted the potential of the cataclysmic event ever taking place. I thought it would never happen in my lifetime. After September 11, 2001 I realized it just happened. Life in America and the world will never be the same. This is the fourth turning. READ THIS BOOK!!!
Rating:
Summary: Here we are.
Review: I just wanted to say the events of 9/11 shows the insight of this book.
Rating:
Summary: An Important and Impactful Work
Review: Strauss and Howe's Fourth Turning is one of the most influential books I have ever read. Through the 90's I was saddened by the mean spiritedness I witnessed in this country and I wondered why so many in politics, business, and our communities focused on exclusion rather than inclusion, on taking rather than giving, and on self rather than on community. I was worried that this narcissism would continue to explode in this country, negatively impacting the quality of life for generations to come. This book brought relief and a realization that there is a much larger plan in store for this country and that the destructive attitudes I have witnessed over the last decade are temporary. Knowing that a crisis (whatever that looks like) will come to this country allows all of us to think about our generational roles and prepare for that turn. For me, I find comfort in the fact that the changing seasons have the ability to level a playing field and bring a community back together again.
Rating:
Summary: The Finest Socio-History Book Ever Written!
Review: Rarely in life, a reader may stumble upon a work which stunningly redirects one's thinking about an entire subject. After reading such a work, every facet of that subject neatly "falls into place" where it never had before. These works tend to be highly controversial as well as thought provoking. Strauss and Howe's "The Fourth Turning" is one such book. This book is so revolutionary that my entire view of American history has been irrevocably changed by it. I have tested its theories of generational change in discussions with my parents, grandparents, and children and found them to be absolutely true. We are all of differing generations, and our outlook and attitudes show it. When the next Great Crisis comes, we can thank the authors for at least having warned some of us that it was coming. Their cyclical theory simply patterns after life itself. Life doesn't simply and slowly improve over time. Catastrophes occur suddenly and they forever change the future. All of our lives show crisis which suddenly and dramatically change us. Even the history of our planet has undergone sudden and dramatic catastrophes which dramatically altered the course of life on earth. Why should the history of our nation be any different? To those who believe this book is trash, come back and reread it in twenty years and you will have been proven wrong. This book is absolutely one of the best books that I have ever read and deserves the highest recommendation possible.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring
Review: Many people have tried to make a theory of history. All failed. It interesting that although many people have seen cyclic patterns in history. Everyone seem to have different times. Unless you really know your American history you are going it hard to get though this book. I found that some of the historical facts used to justify the theory pretty weak. For example to claim that the sinking of the Lusitania in world war 1 was as much a reason to go to war as Pearl Harbor in world war 2.
Rating:
Summary: Exceeds expectations in almost every way
Review: When I picked up The Fourth Turning, I half expected a vacuous trot through highlights of history and an attempt to winnow some small number of intriguing but inexplicable cycles out of the noise. The reason I would read such a thing? Because it claims to be "An American Prophesy." Sounded like fun. I was not expecting what is probably the most notable work on historiology at least since Toffler's The Third Wave. And in many ways Howe and Neil's fresh theories on the eb and flow of generational history may outlive and transcend Toffler's ideas about the macrotrends of civilization. Their theory is simple and elegant, and based on units we all instinctively understand anyway: generations and life phases. Best of all, they make a convincing case that their theory describes Anglo-American history at least from the 1500's until now, with only one exception in the Civil War that happens to prove the rule. Also moving is the fact that many historians who berated Howe and Niel's first book (Generations, 1991) are quieter now that predictions for the 1990s turned out to be strikingly accurate. Probably the most immediately important thing to take from this book is the prediction that sometime within a few years of 2005 our culture may face another crisis the likes of which seem to arrive on schedule every 80-90 years. This great test will go down in history books with the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II. And it will be brought on by the alignment of the four generational types currently alive. Read this book and find out where you and your generational cohorts fit into the grand cycle of history, and what you can do to prepare. The veracity of this theory will very likely be settled by the carnage of the next 25 years.
Rating:
Summary: Too Boring...
Review: This book was sent to me by my mother. I have enjoyed books with similar conclusions, namely "Generation X" - Douglas Coupland, "Deflation" - by Gary Shilling, "The Great Reckoning" - Davidson & Rees-Mogg. Most of this book is a hand-wavy rehash of the last 200 years of American History. It cannot hold a candle (and it cannot hold my interest) compared to these other titles. There are no academic references for the historic interpretations that are drawn. Because there are least 300 value judgements made about historic periods of American History, I'd say that this book verges on being "Intellectual Trash." For me, the book said that my life would kinda suck, but to take comfort because the next generation after me will have a life that _Really Sucks_. No surprise there. Tell me something that I don't already know !!!
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