Here is a link to the Fourth Ages
New Shadow which has got to be one of the most interesting yet forboding things I've ever read by Tolkien.
Apparently he stopped writing the sequel as, amongst other things, he thought it would be nothing more than a 'thriller'. I (and his son Christopher) do not agree with the Professor on this occaision ( [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ) and think that he was drastically underating his own storytelling genius.
Due to the onset of the Dominion of Men, Tolkien clearly did think that the Fourth Age was going to be 'worse' as he says here:
Quote:
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"I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Sauron, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good."
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If you read the New Shadow, short though it is, there is an abundance of deep, dark and profound observations on the nature of Mankind which seem (almost deliberately) to be as valid in our World as in Middle Earths Fourth Age.