Neil Howe is the Managing Director of Demography at Hedgeye Risk Management, an independent financial research firm, as well as President of LifeCourse Associates. Howe is a renowned authority on generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation’s leading thinker on today’s generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America’s future. A historian, economist, and demographer, Howe is also a recognized authority on global aging, long-term fiscal policy, and migration. He is currently a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Global Aging Institute, both in Washington D.C. Howe has co-authored numerous studies for CSIS (including the Aging Vulnerability Index and pioneering studies on pension reform in China and South Korea). Howe has written over a dozen books on generations, demographic change, and fiscal policy, many of them with William Strauss. Howe and Strauss”; first book, Generations (1991), is a history of America told as a sequence of generational biographies. Vice President Al Gore called it “the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read” and sent a copy to every member of Congress. Newt Gingrich called it “an intellectual tour de force”; Of their book The Fourth Turning (1997), The Boston Globe wrote “If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets.” Neil Howe looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in his new book “The Fourth Turning is Here” with a startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civil unrest will resolve over the next ten years—and what our lives will look like once it has. Howe and Strauss originally coined the term “Millennial Generation”; in 1991, and wrote the pioneering book on this generation, Millennials Rising (2000). His work has been featured frequently by media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and CBS 60 Minutes. Previous works include On Borrowed Time (1989; reissued 2004), a pioneering call for budgetary reform Howe co-authored with Peter G. Peterson, as well as The Graying of the Great Powers (2008) with Richard Jackson. Howe received his B.A. at U.C. Berkeley and later earned graduate degrees in economics and history from Yale University.
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Episode 321
Neil Howe
The Fourth Turning Is Here: Our Great National Challenge | Neil Howe
Neil Howe is the Managing Director of Demography at Hedgeye Risk Management, an independent financial research firm, as well as President of LifeCourse Associates. Howe is a renowned authority on generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation’s leading thinker on today’s generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America’s future. A historian, economist, and demographer, Howe is also a recognized authority on global aging, long-term fiscal policy, and migration. He is currently a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Global Aging Institute, both in Washington D.C. Howe has co-authored numerous studies for CSIS (including the Aging Vulnerability Index and pioneering studies on pension reform in China and South Korea). Howe has written over a dozen books on generations, demographic change, and fiscal policy, many of them with William Strauss. Howe and Strauss”; first book, Generations (1991), is a history of America told as a sequence of generational biographies. Vice President Al Gore called it “the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read” and sent a copy to every member of Congress. Newt Gingrich called it “an intellectual tour de force”; Of their book The Fourth Turning (1997), The Boston Globe wrote “If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets.” Neil Howe looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in his new book “The Fourth Turning is Here” with a startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civil unrest will resolve over the next ten years—and what our lives will look like once it has. Howe and Strauss originally coined the term “Millennial Generation”; in 1991, and wrote the pioneering book on this generation, Millennials Rising (2000). His work has been featured frequently by media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and CBS 60 Minutes. Previous works include On Borrowed Time (1989; reissued 2004), a pioneering call for budgetary reform Howe co-authored with Peter G. Peterson, as well as The Graying of the Great Powers (2008) with Richard Jackson. Howe received his B.A. at U.C. Berkeley and later earned graduate degrees in economics and history from Yale University.
In Episode 321 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with bestselling author, renowned historian, economist, and theorist of generational change, Neil Howe.
Twenty-five years ago, Neil and his late co-author William Strauss put forward a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back over the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly 80 to 100 years, with each composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about 25 years.
The last of these eras is always the most perilous. It’s a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization as traumatic and transformative as the New Deal and World War II, the Civil War, or the American Revolution. The authors called it the Fourth Turning, and Neil joins us today to explain why he thinks that the fourth turning has finally arrived, what it means for those of us living during this period, and how his theory of generational change can help us navigate it with courage, competency, and a new-found sense of resiliency that may seem unimaginable to us today.
Howe and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation laying the foundation for his theory, discussing the four different seasons of the saecula, as well as the four different generations that propel it forward.
They spend the second hour applying that framework to the Fourth Turning itself, discussing what it would take to consolidate our society, what an existential threat to our nation’s survival will look and feel like, and what we can do to prepare ourselves for this great national challenge that will draw all other problems into it and require the extraordinary mobilization of most Americans.
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Neil Howe is the Managing Director of Demography at Hedgeye Risk Management, an independent financial research firm, as well as President of LifeCourse Associates. Howe is a renowned authority on generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation’s leading thinker on today’s generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America’s future. A historian, economist, and demographer, Howe is also a recognized authority on global aging, long-term fiscal policy, and migration. He is currently a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Global Aging Institute, both in Washington D.C. Howe has co-authored numerous studies for CSIS (including the Aging Vulnerability Index and pioneering studies on pension reform in China and South Korea). Howe has written over a dozen books on generations, demographic change, and fiscal policy, many of them with William Strauss. Howe and Strauss”; first book, Generations (1991), is a history of America told as a sequence of generational biographies. Vice President Al Gore called it “the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read” and sent a copy to every member of Congress. Newt Gingrich called it “an intellectual tour de force”; Of their book The Fourth Turning (1997), The Boston Globe wrote “If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets.” Neil Howe looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in his new book “The Fourth Turning is Here” with a startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civil unrest will resolve over the next ten years—and what our lives will look like once it has. Howe and Strauss originally coined the term “Millennial Generation”; in 1991, and wrote the pioneering book on this generation, Millennials Rising (2000). His work has been featured frequently by media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and CBS 60 Minutes. Previous works include On Borrowed Time (1989; reissued 2004), a pioneering call for budgetary reform Howe co-authored with Peter G. Peterson, as well as The Graying of the Great Powers (2008) with Richard Jackson. Howe received his B.A. at U.C. Berkeley and later earned graduate degrees in economics and history from Yale University.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
