Strauss and Howe Place Generations In Past Present And Future
Thursday, April 29th, 2004
When it comes to popular theory on generational development and the future, many people think of William Strauss and Neil Howe. Their first book, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069, came out in 1991. 13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail? came out in 1993. The Fourth Turning was first published in 1996. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation hit the bookshops in 2000.
Strauss and Howe use the generation theories developed by Ortega y Gasset and Julian Marias (both from Spain). They base their work on the idea that there are four types of generational cohorts cycling through history. Each generation lasts about 20 years.
Critiques of this approach ask whether major shifts in world view will affect these generations - shifts such as postmodernism and technology revolution. Another questions links to the American/European bias of their work. What about Asian, African and Oceanic cultures? Their web site provides a chance to engage with the authors. Are these historians/futurists treating the masses as mindless pawns of fate? It seems very similar to the psychohistory used by Hari Sheldon in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series.
www.lifeassociates.com
www.fourthturning.com
www.millennialsrising.com
