Hey Dragan,
Hmmmm, I see you're thinking about it. :-)
I'm intrigued by their approach because of this -- there are archtypes of behavior found in individuals as well as groups. Psychology of the individual has been developing for 100+ years. (i.e. not long) Psychology of groups is still in the dark ages. 'Family Systems' therapy has presented models of behavior influenced by archtypes in individuals, including multi-generational behaviors. These authors are attempting to disern a similar model for multi-generational *group* behaviors.
While it's not impirical or 'hard' science, it isn't attempting to predict unrefutable destinies. And hasn't claimed to either, rather just anticipate likelyhoods based on prior experiences. Here, "theory" means "workable hypothesis", not mere opinion. There are certainly behavior "patterns" in individuals as well a groups. Futher, they tend to be highly cyclic. The authors appropriation of history into the model seems reasonable... although it's admittedly easy to predict the past. ;-) But, similary, while there's not a predictive "science" for investing in the stock market, the Rothchild's idea of "when there's blood in the steets, buy!" usually has proven to have pretty good results.
Do you know of "memes" and/or "memetics"? Seems relavant here.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Steven-

>After reading the other half of what's available in excerpts at the website, I'm even more inclined to stay with what I said - and I'm actually grateful to you for posting the link, because it gives some valuable insight into the way of political thinking prevalent here.
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>I think that the generational analysis is a right thing to concentrate on. These generational sentiments are a major driving force, and misunderstanding them really was a major source of "subperfect" prophecies. OTOH, I don't think this author is getting it right, either. As long as he sees the mechanism of generational shift at work, his analysis seems right. When he tries to use this analysis as a tool to foresee the future, he gets under too much of his own influence. He's too keen on seeing cycles, regular shifts of generation types and specially the charismatic figures.
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>While his "grey champions" will surely re-emerge at some point, simply because they are part of the lore, and someone may feel tempted to jump into the role when the situation demands it, but that doesn't mean they are any major historical force. They are just the proverbial tip of an iceberg.
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>>Interesting. Thank you.
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>>>As light reading, maybe. While there may be something in the overall mechanism of generation shifts, he's about to be wrong in his predictions just like the others. And there's the Western disease of looking for/into/unto leaders. The first generation which decides they don't really need leaders, simply because they don't like being led and feel they can do their thinking for themselves, will throw his theory into the bunch he criticizes in the beginning. But it may fail even before that.
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>>>The only axiom of social sciences (aka humanities) is "the people will behave" - and while everything else follows from there, there's no way one can build a surprise-proof theory based on that. The people can surprise anyone.