The Fourth Turning…

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William Strauss and Neil Howe.

A fascinating discussion of the cyclical nature of history.

“Mankind is predictable. Governments mistreat people— their own people and others. They always have, and they always will. So the people react. There is action and reaction. This is how history has progressed and how it always will.”

17 thoughts on “The Fourth Turning…”

  1. Newton’s third law of motion, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction… Be the opposite reaction.

    CederQ, when you gonna do a Harley spread for us Harley lovers? Just asking…

    • I’m not a Harley lover… I have a bike post coming soon and it will have some of those oil leaking hogs. You could send a pic of yours and I will include it, just use the GMX email account at the bottom of the page.

  3. yup. it is not a good time to be alive. and the really bad part will be the years it will
    take to get thru this. never gave it much thought before a couple of years ago
    but after reading it a few times, it does explain what is happening now.
    and people wonder why I moved to the hills. I think the cities will burn before this is over. started stocking up years ago and I am keep at it now.
    going to get a few trees cut down to make room for more garden beds this spring.
    wood will go into the wood pile for heat and the beds will give me veggies this summer. already have a canner and lots of ball jars, extra lids and seals too.
    I wonder what is going to fail first, the money (dollar) or assholes in Dc will get us into a war we can not win and should never have started
    god knows they trying hard enough to start one.

    • Dave from one NE gardener to another you might look at Hügelkultur for your new raised beds.

      Also, most veggies don’t use but the top 6-9 inches or so of the soil so saves the compost for the growing area, not the height of the bed.

      The spongy rotting wood acts like a water reservoir helping my raised beds carry on through our dry spells nicely.

      Been working for forests forever, ya know.

      • Spongy rotting wood draws carpenter ants in New Jersey. If you have reason to remove that wood, the ants will find another home – likely your house.

      • I had to look that up. anyway, I have been doing something like that for years now. all of the wood scraps that do not go in the wood pile for burning go in the bottom of any new garden beds I making. same thing with chopped up leaves and other garden scraps. most of the soil here is clay and worthless by itself. but I had one of those old drum mixers
        and used to mix my soil before in went in the bed.
        used to buy some top soil and sand to mix into the clay
        and when I can get them, wood chips from a chipper.
        they work great on walkways and also to fill in the spaces
        in the bottom of the bed.
        and again as you have pointed out, they hold water very well. if you can get a diner to save you the old coffee grounds, you will have the best thing to add to your soil !
        earth worms love coffee grounds !
        I have a very helpful neighbor and for the longest time I was trying to find a way to pay him back,.
        worms for bait. he does love to fish. and he gets some monster worms from me anytime he wants some.
        he was shocked to find how big they where in my compost pile.
        if you have a wood stove, save the ash to go on your garden beds. what I do is spread it out over the top and then work it in the soil. and I get cherry tomato’s to die for !
        no shit, I go out to pick some for something and end up eating more than half before I start back in.
        the wife will pick a green pepper and start eating it right there.
        and rainfall is not problem here, we get over 100 inches every year. drainage is the big problem around here.

  4. I checked this book out of the library in 2009. After two renewals I still couldn’t get through it. Not that the message isn’t worth reading the details behind it. I just found it dryer than sand above the high water mark at the beach.

  6. Published in 1997. Bought and read it long ago. Little dry and long and a lot regurgitated history like the roman republic. I did like how they described how each generation is created based on their location in the four turnings. They predicted the fourth turning starting about 2005 and I pretty much agree they were fairly close in their prediction. I do recommend reading it if anything for just another perspective because “good times create weak men, weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men and strong men create good times.

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