Like other works of prognostication, this one depends heavily on a forced reading of history, often expressed in oracular truisms. Are we really to believe that the second 'socioeconomic cycle' ran right through the Civil War and its immediate aftermath despite the fact that roughly a third of the economy, namely the South, was utterly destroyed more than a decade before it ended? Then there are the banalities ... If you take away Mr. Friedman’s dodgy idea of recurrent 50- and 80-year cycles, and ignore the ever more speculative prophecies near the end, the book contains real insights.
The Storm Before the Calm...is a provocative attempt to connect past, present, and future, that, in my judgment, shines a spotlight on the flaws of futurology. Mr. Friedman’s examination of American history, the foundation of his theory, is a mix of conventional wisdom and vague, simplistic and dubious claims ... The underlying assumption of The Storm Before the Calm—that the onset and outcome of cycles are inevitable because the 'deep structure' and its development 'control actors and events'—should also be met with skepticism ... And Mr. Friedman’s book is awash in faux precision ... Kinda’ makes my head spin.
To me these cycles, lasting as short as Friedman specifies, might as well not be accounted for at all. He does not make the case they are distinct and recognizable to anyone but him ... Friedman spends a chapter explaining how the USA is an empire in denial, a reluctant empire, an immature empire, and not a particularly competent empire, using too little or too much force, largely dependent on Russian involvement for its efforts. Nothing could be further from the truth ... He also forces things to fit his theory ... Finally, this theory is only valid in the USA, it seems. It is special for Americans alone. Which doesn’t help its standing as a theory.
... [a] probing and ultimately hopeful diagnosis of America’s discontents ... Though Friedman’s cycles feel artificial and his prophecies Nostradamian...they frame cogent analyses of America’s dysfunctions, including the demoralizing decline of middle-class incomes and working-class whites’ resentment of an arrogant ruling technocracy formed by elite universities they can’t get into. Crystal ball-gazing aside, Friedman offers a lucid, stimulating assessment of which way the wind is blowing.
Many readers will balk at the author’s too-neat cycles and the notion that leaders do not play a major role in shaping events. In support of his theorizing, he offers a sharp analysis of American life, especially the roots of the knack for reinvention that allows the nation to start over after crises ... A provocative, idea-filled burst of prognostication.
