Chapter 9, Fourth Turnings in History Summary and Analysis

The Spirit of America was at its height at the end of World War II. Today, it is decaying. The Fourth Turning will signal both the absolute bottom of the American spirit and its regeneration. Community instinct is reborn and people work together. Fourth Turnings are crisis eras and they have a certain shape. Crises eras kick off with catalysts, startling events that shift the mood of a people. After the catalyst, society experiences a regeneration which reunifies them. This regeneration reaches a climax where a new social order is born and the climax resolves into a resolution - the conclusion of the old saeculum, and establishes the values of the new saeculum. Typically, the catalyst can be foreseen but the crises, while seeming obvious in retrospect, cannot be foreseen ahead of time...