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Pendulum  By  cover art

Pendulum

By: Michael R. Drew,Roy H. Williams
Narrated by: Roy H. Williams,Michael R. Drew
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Publisher's summary

Politics, manners, humor, sexuality, wealth, even our definitions of success are periodically renegotiated based on the new values society chooses to use as a lens to judge what is acceptable.

Are these new values randomly chosen or is there a pattern? Pendulum chronicles the stuttering history of western society; that endless back-and-forth swing between one excess and another, always reminded of what we left behind.

There is a pattern and it is forty years: 2003 was a fulcrum year, as was 1963, its opposite.

Pendulum explains where we have been as a society, how we got here, and where we are headed. If you would benefit from a peek into the future, you would do well to listen to this book.

©2012 Roy H. Williams & Michael R. Drew (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Pendulum offers fascinating insights into the surprises and revelations of shifting social trends throughout history. Roy H. Williams and Michael Drew answer the age-old question: What makes us tick?" (Harvey Mackay, author of Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive)

What listeners say about Pendulum

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Fascinating book

I heard about this book on Glenn Beck's show and he had the authors on for an interview. It is fascinating to see the cycles a society goes through and maybe some warning signs will appear to make the extremes not so extreme.

I highly recommend this book

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Read by a radio announcer

Content is interesting but the performance is over the top. It's as if a top 10 radio announcer is reading the book to you. Plus there are two other choices that randomly pop in and it breaks the flow.

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Fast forward to the last two chapters.

This book does a terrible job giving examples of why history repeats itself. It tries to re-package the idea of “history repeating itself” or historical cycles humans have gone thru since the beginning of time ; example (which is not in the book —Rome, Spain and
England all were as the United States started ...conquering, successful and growing in wealth. All those countries lost world power for many reasons—one of them is when they began to borrow to the point of bankrupting themselves just as The United States is doing today...which will eventually collapse our government and the United States will cease to be a World Power, just as Rome, Spain and England once were the world power and are no more. If you do buy this book ...fast forward to the last two chapters —I forced myself to listen to entire book hoping it would redeem itself at some point...this book is essentially a waste of time...the only decent portion are the last few chapters....not great ...just decent.

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2023 we zenith - hang on it's going to be a bumpy ride

It hasn't been updated to show that they were right. It be amazing to go into we swing while we are in it

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Horrible

I could have spent the money in better ways, the idea of the book might be true or good, but the way it is presented is just horrible, hard ti follow

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Jagonenc@aol.com

Very interesting ideas and perspectives. I’m not completely sold on it, but the supporting information is impressive.

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Decent book, but ..

It lay out his thesis, but if you want a better explanation I would read/listen to the fourth turning. That book explains and gives more relevance to what has happened and what is going on in todays world

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Didn't outline actionable results enough

The concept of the pendulum was cool. However they kept trying to convince us for most of the book with example after example, which felt repetitive after awhile. I would've prefered 30% of the book dedicated to proving the concept, then 70% devoted to tools you can use to exploit this knowledge, as well as more predictions and useful tips for marketing or building businesses or products in different cycles.

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Eye opening! Brilliant pattern recognition! We and Me!

This audio book is extremely relevant today. Especially if your in business or marketing. It was eye opening for me to recognize the pattern of “we” vs “me” and how it applies to business and the context of the 80 year cycle from “4th turning”. Highly recommend!

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Can’t predict the future; but Anticipate trends, we can

The cycles of the generations over an 80-year span of time repeat fairly consistently, from “Me” to “We” and back again. Understanding this pattern, helps me understand why Boomers are different from Gen X and Millennials are different from Traditionals. When I got to the part about how we are (June 2022) entering the final upheaval phase of an 80-year cycle (2023-2033) it really opens your eyes to the events we are experiencing,…and this book is 10-years old, already.

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