Present At the Destruction

“The old American republic is collapsing. And a new American republic, as yet unrecognizable, is under construction.” The opening line of historian Neil Howe’s The Fourth Turning Is Here (2023) jumps to the point. It also foreshadows the odd dualistic theme that seems to run not only through the book’s pages but through the very air of our national moment: intuitions of imminent doom and destruction, intimations of hope and renewal; one world dying, another struggling to be born. We sense that serious change, of one kind or another, is coming—and soon. Howe’s book tries to tell us why that is, and why we should find cause for optimism.