Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. While studying history back in the 1990s, Neil Howe and the late William Strauss noticed something. There seemed to be a pattern to history that repeated itself again and again. Howe and Strauss developed a theory that history moves in 80 to 100 year cycles, divided into four 20 to 25 year turnings. The high, awakening, unraveling, and crisis. Neil Howe argues that we are currently living through a fourth turning. Thank you. Thank you. Neil explains what these phases look like, which ones we've already been through, and which are still to come, and when he thinks our fourth turning will end and the cycle of history will start over. In the second part of our conversation, Neil talks about what cultural changes he thinks will experience as the fourth turning progresses, including how he thinks gender roles will shift. We also discuss what happens if the crisis ends in disaster and the most important thing to do to successfully navigate a fourth turning. After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash fourth turning. All right, Neil Howell, welcome back to the show. Great to be here, Brett. So back in the 90s, you and William Strauss developed this generational cyclical theory of history. And you got a new book out that is sort of a summary and synthesis of all your previous work. It's called The Fourth Turning is Here. And we had you on the show back in 2016 to talk about that work. We also wrote an article back in 2012 that I think offers a really accessible overview of your theory. But for those listeners who aren't familiar with your cyclical theory of history, I'll try to kick things off with a thumbnail sketch of it. So basically, you say that history repeats itself in a certain pattern. There's this 80 to 100-year cycle that repeats itself. You call it a saculum. And that saculum is divided into four periods or turnings, which can be compared to the seasons of the year. And each turning is 20 to 25 years long. And I think it's really easiest to help people understand this to look at the last turning in a cycle, right? It's first, the fourth turning, which is sort of like the historical winter. The fourth turning is a crisis period. A country faces some big threat. It's often a war. Our last fourth turning started with the Great Depression and ended with World War II. And then the cycle starts over again with the first turning, which is a high period like spring. In the first turning, institutions are strong and individualism is weak. It's kind of conformist, but people are able to work together and get big things done. And our last first turning was after World War II during the late 40s and into the early 60s. The second turning is a time of spiritual awakening. This is the summer season in history. People start getting tired of the conformity of the first turning, and there's more emphasis on individualism and the inner life. And this was in the mid-1960s to the mid-80s. And then there's the third turning, which is like fall. This is a period of unraveling. When the individualism of the second turning kind of catches up with society and trust in institutions bottoms out and societal systems become dysfunctional. People are divided, and they can't get things done. Things just feel really worn out. And this was from the mid-80s to the mid-00s. And then the crisis happens again, and we're back to the fourth turning. So that's it. And then there's also four generational archetypes that are part of this 80-year cycle that are really interesting, and they repeat themselves too. But we're going to concentrate on the tourneys today, particularly the turn you say we are in now, which is the fourth turning. So let's talk about this current fourth turning, because a lot of people look around at the news, they're looking at their social media feeds, and it just seems like everything is falling apart, and nothing works, and that we're on the verge of just something, it feels like something bad is going to happen. So let's dig into this fourth turning, what you talk about in the book and this current crisis that we're in. One of the things about fourth turnings is that they have their own chronology as well.