MAIN IDEA:

This book is an update on the previous work of the author about the seasonal character of human society development. The seasons are called turnings, last for about 20 years each, and are caused by generational changes. Each generation is formed by the environment created by the previous generation, or at least somewhat rejects it, creating a new environment for the next generation. Here is how the author defines his objective:

Over the course of this book, I hope to persuade you of a more ancient yet also more optimistic doctrine: that our collective social life, as with so many rhythmic systems in nature, requires seasons of sudden change and radical uncertainty in order for us to thrive over time. Or, to paraphrase Blaise Pascal: History has reasons that reason knows nothing of.”

In this book, the author concentrates his attention on the current season – Winter when society dramatically changes and becomes something new, quite different than what it was before. The author predicted this season of wars and revolutions since the early 1990s and was correct in both: its timing and severity. It started in 2008 with the financial crisis and is expected to last until the late 2020s or early 2030s. How society will look at the end is unknown, but the author is convinced that it will be radically different. After that, Spring will come and the newly renovated society will begin increasing its prosperity if the change is positive such as winning a war, or it will begin the process of adjustment and recovery if the change is negative such as losing a war.

MY TAKE ON IT:

This is one of a few books that prophecies coming of the difficult time, or, more precisely, demonstrate that the difficult time is here. It is hard not to agree with this evaluation if one just looks at today’s news. The current condition of human societies everywhere in the world is unstable. The previously dominant Western societies are ideologically undermined from within by allowing the takeover of their institutions by the elite clearly hostile to its philosophical foundation based on ideas of enlightenment, human rights, equality of individuals before the law, tolerance of religions, and economic freedom. They were also undermined by the economic elite that implemented the transfer of productive facilities to totalitarian countries such as China and established dependence for raw materials and energy on such culturally and ideologically hostile entities as Russia and countries of the Middle East. Finally, they allowed and encouraged mass immigration of culturally and ideologically hostile individuals that undermined the cohesiveness of society and even caused multiple terrorist attacks and suppression of individual freedoms. Finally, they created massive external threats by transferring technology to China, Russia, and other hostiles bent on changing the world order to the new one when the dominant power will be in the hands of totalitarians and individual freedom will be eliminated all over the world. 

This is a pretty gloomy picture, but it is by far less gloomy than it was 80 years ago when the totalitarian powers of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, and fascist Italy were on the brink of taking over the world in the Spring of 1941 after the alliance of Hitler and Stalin pretty much completed the takeover of continental Europe, while Japan was well advanced in Asia. However, totalitarians largely failed because they turned on each other and Hitler attacked Stalin, just before Stalin was ready to attack Hitler.

The current situation is better because totalitarian China still has a relatively weak military and Russia has a lousy economy. Both also demonstrated that their strong sides: China’s economy and Russia’s military are quite weak under the façade of strength. As to internal threat, the anti-Western ideological elite that captured institutions brought these institutions down, increasingly convincing the population that these institutions must be cleaned up or even destroyed because of their hostility to regular people. Anyway, I am pretty sure that the next few years will be exciting to watch.