In writing this book, my key objective was to answer the questions today’s readers most want answered: When did our current Fourth Turning (or Crisis era) begin? How has it evolved? Where is it going? And how will it end?

An American civil war, accompanied by a sudden implosion of global U.S. power, might usher in such ghastly scenarios as a multi-sided world war in which America itself is not a major participant.

Despite these efforts, financial markets tipped into their steepest global crash since the Great Crash of 1929. This terrifying bust, which came to be known as the Global Financial Crisis, was the catalyst. And it led directly to the most severe global economic contraction since the Great Depression.

Another change has been the abject failure of leaders to govern as if outcomes matter. Leaders who can’t identify objectives, exercise authority, and get results—who are forever redefining what they are there to do—invite contempt for their office. Institutions struggling to fulfill their core function are taking on vast new tasks at which they

Politically mixed or “purple” communities are therefore getting scarcer. More and more regions are swinging all blue or all red.

The average date here is 2028. Recall from Chapters 3 and 4 that a new turning typically arrives four years after each generation begins to enter a new phase of life. This would point to the Millennial Crisis ending in 2032.

We know when the Millennial Crisis began (2008). When is it likely to end? One approximate way to forecast the end year is to refer back to the average length of the Anglo-American saeculum. Since the first of these saecula began, five have fully run their course. Their average length, measured from resolution to resolution, is ninety-two years.

Two-thirds believe their children will end up “financially worse off” than they are. (If compared to similarly worded questions asked in prior decades, this negativity has reached a postwar high.)

As for America’s civic life, this is where the old republic has disintegrated beyond recognition. Our politics are now monopolized by two political parties that represent not just contrasting policies, but mutually exclusive worldviews. These are “megaparties,”