Neil Howe’s The Fourth Turning Is Here challenges the modern assumption of steady progress and instead describes Anglo-American history as a repeating four-part cycle, or “saeculum,” that unfolds over the span of a typical human life. Howe treats each phase as part of a self-correcting pattern that he compares to the cycle of the seasons. A saeculum opens in a civic “High,” moves into a spiritual “Awakening,” shifts into an individualistic “Unraveling” that erodes institutions, and reaches a Fourth Turning, or “Crisis,” when society confronts the breakdown of its old civic order and constructs a new one. Howe presents these Crises as predictable periods of upheaval that clear away exhausted structures and prepare the ground for renewal, beginning the cycle again.

The four turnings—High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis—each carry a social mood that shapes life for about 20 years. A First Turning features strong institutions and shared confidence, as seen in the post-WWII economic boom—an era defined by widespread optimism and patriotism but also by social conformity, racial and gender inequality, and the suppression of dissent. A Second Turning brings a burst of spiritual dissent that targets the High’s conformity, such as what Howe calls the “Consciousness Revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s.