Books

The Fourth Turning Is Here

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Update July 19, 2024: since I posted this last year, the number of visits to this post and the original post has ramped considerably, signaling a resonance with the books message. As a result, I recently posted additional thoughts on the topic here.

I first read the book The Fourth Turning in 2019. I was struck by compelling evidence that describes the cycles of history, each lasting the length of human life. The cycle is made up of four turnings, each 20-25 years in duration. First comes a High, a period of confident expansion as a new order takes root after the old has been swept away. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion against the now-established order. Then comes an Unraveling, an increasingly troubled era in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis—the Fourth Turning – when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history. Together, the four turnings comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth.

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The Metaverse Economy

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“The Metaverse Economy emerges just as AI bursts into public awareness. Is the metaverse and web3 heading in the same direction? Exploring this question from multiple angles, this book provides a balanced perspective on the possibilities, the headwinds and the potential for advancing our human development. This is essential reading for those who wish to understand this possible future.”

Frank Diana, Managing Partner and Principal Futurist, TCS
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The Path Of AI: Machine Intelligence or Machine Usefulness

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Central to my thinking on innovation is a belief that human advancement is within our grasp. The innovation wheel I developed was inspired by this belief, and while I am an optimist, I also appreciate the role that history plays in providing perspective. Just because we have the opportunity to advance human development doesn’t mean that we will take it. History tells us that opposing forces fight to influence our path. With that as context, I ventured into reading a book titled Power and Progress. Authors Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson explore a thousand years of history and contemporary evidence, making the case that progress depends on the choices we make about technology.

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Soulful: You In The Future Of Artificial Intelligence

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I recently had the opportunity to read a pre-release version of a new book by David Espindola. The timely book – due to launch on May 29 – is titled Soulful: You in the Future of Artificial Intelligence. With the introduction of ChatGPT a few months ago, artificial intelligence is now top of mind. A day doesn’t pass where countless articles explore various aspects of Generative AI. My interaction at events and leadership forums is dominated by the topic. Among the noise are thoughtful voices that provide new insights. David investigates the topic through the lens of multiple domains, including technology, neuroscience, social psychology, economics, philosophy, and theology. I’ve included the book abstract below. You can preorder the book on Amazon. I highly recommend it and have added it to my library.

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Ecosystems Emerge From The Shadows

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My fascination with ecosystems dates back to 2012. By 2014, I was convinced it represented a significant structural change on the horizon. Over a decade later, an ecosystem economy is emerging. A recent book titled The Ecosystem Economy explores the past, present, and future of ecosystems. My thoughts on the topic span multiple posts and were summarized in a post titled A World of Ecosystems.

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The Aftermath: The Last Days Of The Baby Boom

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I finished reading my latest book titled The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. I thoroughly enjoyed the book – and not just because I am a boomer. The baby boom began in the middle of 1946 and ended in 1964. The generation drove a rapid expansion of the population – over the 19-year period, 76 million babies were born.

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Your Future In The New Reality Of The Next Thirty Years

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You will have the opportunity and the duty to create a decidedly better world. You will need to develop the wisdom to use this expansive power in advance of receiving it. Your success will decide if the future is a new age of enlightenment or darkness. Experience and maturity alone cannot provide the required wisdom fast enough. You will need to maximize your innate potential to accelerate wisdom.

Ben Lytle – The Potentialist I: Your Future in the New Reality of the Next Thirty Years

That quote is from a book I finished reading. Author Ben Lytle envisions the world of the next thirty years through the lens of human potential and opportunity, versus anxiety and fear. One of the most frequently asked questions I receive involves the human role in an increasingly automated future. The book describes what that world may look like in thirty years. With that vision in place, Mr. Lytle explores our human potential with an eye towards, skills, mindset, health, wealth, and success. The book accomplishes two very important things: it frames the forces that shape a very different future, and it describes a roadmap for us to thrive in that future. A very good read that I have added to my library.

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Is There A Future That Does Not Include Us?

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I finished reading another book titled the Revolt Against Humanity. It explores two strands of thinking – each of which alters the human species. Anthropocene antihumanism considers the end of our species due to climate destruction, while Transhumanism believes that we will birth a new species that is superior to humans. In either scenario, it represents the end of life as we know it. A short read that shines a light on a revolt against humanity that the author claims has already spread beyond the fringes. The Amazon abstract is included below. I have added it to my library.

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Disorder: Hard Times In The 21st Century

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As geopolitical instability contributes to the uncertainty of the environment, it is critical to understand how we got here. Instability does not just emerge; it evolves over time. Our current climate finds its origins in the 1970s, with 2005 representing a critical tipping point. It still amazes me to think about the prescience of a book titled the Fourth Turning – where 2005 was identified as the beginning of a crisis period. A more recent book explored the question of how we got here. Author Helen Thompson tells a story viewed through the lens of energy, democracy, and aristocracy. The historical journey presented by Disorder underscores the complexity of geopolitical convergence.

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The Cashless Revolution

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I just finished a book titled The Cashless Revolution authored by Martin Chorzempa. The book was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best of 2022. Interestingly, one of the other recent books I read is also on their list – Slouching Towards Utopia. This latest read explored the world of FinTech and the cashless revolution happening in China – and the possible futures that may drive.

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Exploring Possible Economic Futures

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In the interest of exploring possible economic futures, I have read books on Modern Monetary Theory, Zero Marginal Cost, The Job Guarantee, and several others. Add to the list the most recent book I finished, How Capitalism Ends. Viewed through the lens of property rights, wealth, and the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, author Steve Paxton uses an effective method of storytelling: start with history and then explore possible futures. The book is setup by two thesis: the development and the primacy thesis. What he describes helps us understand the “why” behind the future that is emerging.

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The Age Of Resilience

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In an online leadership course developed in 2016, I stressed the need for resilience and adaptability. The course, titled A Journey Through the Looking Glass, focused on an emerging world of complexity, uncertainty, and the unknown. We rarely heard the words resilience and adaptability spoken back then, but along came a pandemic to force them into our vocabulary. While our short-term focus obstructed our view, cracks were forming and accumulating in ways that were likely to put a premium on these two traits.

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A Look At Economic History

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The “free market” is perhaps the most familiar of economic bywords. Since at least the Great Depression, the term has been a staple of the nation’s political discourse, used both to praise and to criticize policy. An economic philosophy intertwined with a number of powerful political ideologies

Jacob Soll – Free Market, The History of an Idea
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An Economic History Of The Twentieth Century

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UPDATE: Brad DeLong recently talked about his book on this podcast.

I just finished reading a book titled Slouching Towards Utopia. The book explores the history of what author J. Bradford DeLong calls a long twentieth century. He views the 140-year period between 1870 and 2010 as the most consequential years of all humanity’s centuries. In an earlier book by Robert J. Gordon, he told a similar story of a special century between 1870-1970. The common denominator is the starting point of 1870, or the start of the second industrial revolution. Both books tell a compelling story about a period of economic prosperity never seen in human history.

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Purpose Plus Profit

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I just finished reading my latest book titled Purpose + Profit. The book was written by Harvard professor George Serafeim. Being purpose-driven is no longer a brand or marketing gimmick, but a sea change driven by multiple forces. The book provides data to support the coexistence of both purpose and profit. In fact, it makes the case that purpose-driven companies have better outcomes. In 2017, I spoke about the need for a hybrid of purpose and profit. It is refreshing to read the many examples of how that exact scenario is playing out. Even more encouraging is the advancement in available data that allows us to measure impact – something the author calls impact weighted accounting. I recommend the book and have added it to my library. The Amazon abstract is included below.

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The Final Stages Of The Fourth Turning

Frank Diana Books, Our Emerging Future , ,

Update July 19, 2024: since I posted this in 2022, surviving author Neil Howe launched a follow up book last year titled The fourth Turning is Here. The number of visits to this original post has ramped considerably, signaling a resonance with the books message. As a result, I recently posted additional thoughts on the topic here.

It was 2019 when I finished a book titled The Fourth Turning. I found myself referring to it a couple of weeks ago during a conversation about the cycles of history. I went back to the book after our discussion given the many changes the world experienced since I added it to my library. The repeated cycles of history described by the book remain both fascinating and ominous.

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Possible Futures Over One Hundred Years

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I just finished another book titled Future Stories authored by David Christian and have added it to my book library. The book focuses on future thinking, exploring the various ways that experts, plants, animals, and even cells manage the future. This visual from the book provides a glimpse of the possible futures explored.

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The Journey Of Humanity

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Since the dawn of the nineteenth century, a split second compared to the span of human existence, life expectancy has more than doubled, and per capita incomes have soared twenty-fold in the most developed regions of the world, and fourteen-fold on Planet Earth as a whole

Oded Galor – The Journey of Humanity
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The Genesis Machine

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I just finished reading my latest book titled The Genesis Machine, in which authors Amy Webb and Andrew Hessel explore the world of synthetic biology. Although not as widely discussed as AI, Blockchain and others, it is perhaps the best example of why the future may look very different than the past. I have argued that the world is in the early stages of a phase transition. The content of the book represents a clear reason why.

The authors provide a riveting look into the world of synthetic biology. The book focuses initially on its origins, shifts to the here and now, and then pivots to a glimpse of the future. They provide several scenarios that help the reader envision that future, and in so doing, allow us to see both the potential for human development, as well as the possibility of several destructive paths. The book closes with a discussion on our way forward. As a world-renowned Futurist, Amy knows how to tell a story, and it is through storytelling that individuals can see the possibilities along both paths. The authors define synthetic biology as:

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Innovation At Scale

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The world is experiencing another period of great invention. We have the building blocks of the future, but to drive human advancement, the resulting innovation needs to scale. Organizations are getting better at experimenting, prototyping, and delivering minimum viable products. But scaling innovation remains a challenging endeavor. As the organizing system of our world changes, structural shifts will follow. One such shift involves the way we create and capture value, which increasingly takes the form of ecosystems. These emerging ecosystems complicate our scaling efforts.

In a recent book titled The Voltage Effect, author John A. List shares his perspective on how to make good ideas great and great ideas scale. He provides a number of examples that describe why some ideas are built to fail, while others are built to scale. Given the importance of the topic, I highly recommend the book and have added it to my library. The Amazon abstract is provided below.

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