Individual Entry: Generations
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July 09, 2009

Books : Generations

Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069

by Neil Howe and William Strauss

I previously posted a review of “The Fourth Turning” which describes Anglo-American history as cyclical with a repeating pattern of four kinds of generations. In their model, the Baby-Boomer generation is very similar to the Puritan generation born starting around 1584, the Awakening generation born starting around 1700, the Transcendentalist generation born starting around 1792, and what they call the “Missionary” generation born starting around 1860 - each being an example of what they call an “Idealist” generation. In each case the preceding (Adaptive) and following (Reactive) generations also have significant similarities, and so on.

The book “Generations” is actually the same authors’ previous work along similar lines, which they referred to liberally in ‘Turning, so I purchased the book back then and have just gotten around to reading it.

Both books acknowledge that the pattern has failed once - the Civil War cycle missed a beat, skipping one of the kinds of generations and going directly from what they call a “Reactive” generation to an “Adaptive”generation without the appearance of a “Civic” generation in between as has occurred in other cycles.

The book “Generations” however explores this flaw in more detail - explaining within the theory as to why it happened. Essentially, the Idealist generation of that cycle managed to gain power (win elections, etc.) earlier in life than the Idealists of other cycles, and in their idealism forced a civic crisis (the Civil War) sooner than it would have other wise (a periodic crisis like the civil war is a part of the cyclic model they propose, only it normally occurs when the Idealists are elders, not in midlife). The result is that the people who would have been nurtured to become the natural heroes of the crisis weren’t ready, and we went straight from the pre-crisis generation to the post-crisis one.

All this is interesting when they get around to suggesting what the future might look like if the pattern holds. According to Generations, we are due for the next Civic Crisis around 2020; but they note in the book (written in 1992) that it is possible the Boomer/Idealists might once again come to power early in which case we might hit the crisis (some combination of war and economic downturn) between 2001 and 2008. The authors express concern about this possibility since it would result in America being engaged in a conflict being led by people who view the issues moral terms, not practical ones (sound familiar?) If this does happen (which in hindsight, I think it did), then once again we may see the “Millennial” generation (those born 1980 and beyond) become more of what they call a “Reactive” generation as opposed to a “Civic” one, just as it happened in the Civil War cycle. I have been looking at the 20-somethings around me, and that too might fit.

Bottom line - an interesting read and I certainly recommend reading one or both of these books.

Posted by Steven at July 9, 2009 05:00 AM

Comments

Posted by: Melissa at July 9, 2009 06:27 PM

Posted by: Steven at July 9, 2009 10:30 PM

Posted by: Melissa at July 12, 2009 07:02 PM

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