How a Pandemic and an Obscure Theory of American History Is Giving Me Hope

Mark Twain once remarked that “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” A few years ago I stumbled on an interesting book called The Fourth Turning, which lays out a theory that American history repeats itself in predictable, 80-year cycles of prosperity and catastrophe. Written in 1997, it seems to have predicted the pandemic we’re currently experiencing.