Layers

There hasn’t been a What In the World Are You Talking About post in a while. For a different way of looking at it, here are some primary assertions of the Strauss & Howe model:

Assertion 1: History is cyclical, with about a 90 year period between one Crisis (American Revolution, for example) and the next (American Civil War).

This predates Strauss & Howe, with Schlesinger among previous proponents. The pattern is obvious enough once pointed out, and can be seen going back at least 500 years in Anglo-American history, with similar patterns seen in the Roman Republic/Empire, Russia, and others. The Strauss & Howe term for this cycle, which ranges from 85 to 100 years, is a Saeculum.

Assertion 2: Within the 90 year cycle is a four-part sub-cycle consisting of the Crisis, the High (triumphant period post-Crisis), Awakening (spiritual tumult in reaction to the stasis of the High) and Unraveling (period of low institutional strength after the Awakening). 

The Strauss & Howe term for these sub-cycles is a Turning. Each of the sub-cycles is 20-25 years in length - i.e. each takes up about the same fraction of of the larger cycle.

Assertion 3: People who are children during a particular Turning  are affected by the overall events of that Turning, and further by the events in the Turnings after, to a point of having 1) a common outlook and 2) similar personality traits as a group.

The first book on this subject was called Generations - not Cycles or Crises or Saeculums or Turnings. The idea of cohorts - groups of people - united by shared historical perspective is most central to the model - without that, it isn't quite what Strauss & Howe proposed.

Assertion 4: The Saeculum, Turnings, and Generations reinforce each other, enabling the overall cycle to be enduring and self-supporting. The Crisis occurs when Heroes are Young Adults (20-40), Nomads are Midlife (40-60) and Prophets are Elders (60-80).  The Crisis ends one Saeculum and, when it ends, starts a new one. The next formation of generational types introduces the next Turning, which results in a new generational cohort, which will eventually support a later Turning. 

Strauss & Howe's explanation for how this can continue involves the related periods of lifespan and childhood. The Saeculum lasts as long as a full human life, and the Turning as long as the period from birth to adulthood. Since the ratio between those periods is 4 to 1, there are four Turnings in each Saeculum. (Although there's more to it than that.)

This layered approach isn't quite how it's explained in the books. They are, after all, attempting to support the complete theory, which has a focus on generational cohorts. And this summary doesn't go into the American Civil War Anomaly, where the cycle appears to break down (but then recover ... eventually). Still, one could accept the first assertion and none of the rest. Or the first and second, without the third and fourth. One can predict that a Crisis is likely without acknowledging anything else about Strauss & Howe.  Although the other aspects appear to offer the opportunity for improved understanding of What's Really Happening.