Study Guide

The Fourth Turning

William Strauss, Neil Howe
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42 pages • 1-hour read

William Strauss, Neil Howe

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

William Strauss, Neil Howe
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996

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Essay Topics

1.

Discuss and analyze the difference between cyclical time and linear time.

2.

Explain how the four phases of the human life cycle mimic the four seasons of nature.

3.

Explain how an awakening era and a crisis era are similar to nature’s summer and winter solstices. 

4.

Discuss and analyze the three attributes that determine membership in a generation.

5.

Explain how the ancient Hellenistic myth of the ekpyrosis is similar to a crisis era.

6.

Discuss and analyze the characteristics of a first turning, or a high era.

7.

Discuss and analyze the characteristics of a second turning, or an awakening era.

8.

Discuss and analyze the characteristics of a third turning, or an unraveling era.

9.

Discuss and analyze the characteristics of a fourth turning, or crisis era.

10.

Analyze some of the predictions made by Strauss and Howe for the fourth turning. To what extent has history borne them out?

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