Biography

A historian, economist, and demographer, Neil Howe is Managing Director of Demography at Hedgeye Risk Management, an independent financial research firm. He is best known for his analysis of generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation's leading thinker on today's generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America's future.

Howe is also a recognized authority on global aging, long-term fiscal policy, and migration. He is currently a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and at the Global Aging Institute, both in Washington, DC. Howe has co-authored numerous studies for CSIS (including the Aging Vulnerability Index and pioneering studies on pension reform in China and South Korea).

Howe has written over a dozen books on generations, demographic change, and fiscal policy, many of them with William Strauss. Howe and Strauss' first book, Generations (1991), is a history of America told as a sequence of generational biographies. Vice President Al Gore called it “the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read” and sent a copy to every member of Congress. Newt Gingrich called it “an intellectual tour de force.” Of their book The Fourth Turning (1997), Dan Yankelovich said, “Immensely stimulating…We will never be able to think about history in the same way.” The Boston Globe wrote, “If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets.”

In 2023 Neil Howe looks once again to America’s past to predict our future in his new book The Fourth Turning is Here with a startling and hopeful prophecy for how our present era of civic trauma will resolve over the next ten years—and what our lives will look like once it has.

Howe and Strauss originally coined the term “Millennial Generation” in 1991, and wrote the pioneering book on this generation, Millennials Rising (2000). His work has been featured frequently by media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, CNN, and CBS’s 60 Minutes. Previous works include On Borrowed Time (1989; reissued 2004), a pioneering call for budgetary reform Howe coauthored with Peter G. Peterson, as well as The Graying of the Great Powers (2008) with Richard Jackson.

Howe grew up in California and currently resides in Great Falls, Virginia, close to Washington, DC. He received his B.A. at UC Berkeley, studied abroad in France and Germany, and later earned graduate degrees in economics (M.A., 1978) and history (M.Phil., 1979) from Yale University.