Many authors have attempted to identify an underlying meaning or pattern to history. Arnold Toynbee wrote of 100 year cycles of war and peace that emerged after the Renaissance. Nikolai Kondratiev wrote of 50 year waves in economic life. Arthur Schlesinger wrote of a recurrent political cycle in American politics. Most recently, William Strauss and Neil Howe have written a generational interpretation of American history.

The Kondratiev Cycle: a generational interpretation provides empirical evidence showing that these cycles are aligned together and so reflect different aspects of an underlying cyclical process. The unified cycle obtained is used to make several predictions for future trends as a test of its validity. If valid, this unification means that those who wish to understand an aspect of the human story, such as economics, must also understand other aspects, such as religious studies, that interact with economics at a deep level. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Kondratiev Cycle: A Generational Interpretation (Michael Alexander)