The Decline of the West (Oxford Paperbacks)
Editorial Reviews
Review
"This grand panorama, this imaginative sweep, this staggering erudition, this Nietzschean prose, with its fine color and ringing force, mark a work that must endure."
-- Henry Hazlitt, New York Sun.
"Here is one of the mighty books of the century, which, sooner or later, will be read by all who ponder the riddle of existence... it is a truly monumental work, at once depressing in its pessimism and exhilarating in its compelling challenge to our accepted ideas."
-- Arthur D. Gayer, The Forum.
"As one reads Spengler the thought keeps recurring, ever more insistently, that here again is one of those universal minds which we had come to think were no longer possible."
-- Allen V. Peden,
St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"Audacious, profound, crochety, absurd, exciting, and magnificent."
-- Lewis Mumford, The New Republic."With monumental learning, with an independence and coldness of judgment which defers nothing to great names or consecrated opinions, and in a style always forceful and in places eloquent, Spengler surveys man's cosmic march, analyzes social classes and the work of leaders, dissects the idea of the State... challenges the economic interpretation of history and appraises religion and religions, only to find them all, in the culture of the West, running fast to decay under the impetus of civilization doomed by destiny from which there is no escape."
-- William MacDonald, New York Times.
"Not since Nietzsche left his indelible mark upon European thought has a work of philosophy come out of Germany, or any other country in Europe, comparable in importance, brilliance and encyclopaedic knowledge with The Decline of the West."
-- Ernest Boyd, The Independent.
"For his methods, his challenges, and his attempts to portray the morphology of civilization, and his flaming appeal to the imagination, Spengler should be read by all who are trying to grope their way in the dusk of evening or dawn."
-- Charles Beard, New York Herald Tribune Books.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Book Description
Since its first publication in two volumes between 1918-1923, The Decline of the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and most talked about books of our time. In all its various editions, it has sold nearly 100,000 copies. A twentieth-century Cassandra, Oswald Spengler
thoroughly probed the origin and "fate" of our civilization, and the result can be (and has been) read as a prophesy of the Nazi regime. His challenging views have led to harsh criticism over the years, but the knowledge and eloquence that went into his sweeping study of Western culture have kept
The Decline of the West alive. As the face of Germany and Europe as a whole continues to change each day, The Decline of the West cannot be ignored.
The abridgment, prepared by the German scholar Helmut Werner, with the blessing of the Spengler estate, consists of selections from the original (translated into English by Charles Francis Atkinson) linked by explanatory passages which have been put into English by Arthur Helps. H. Stuart
Hughes has written a new introduction for this edition.
In this engrossing and highly controversial philosophy of history, Spengler describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity. Guided by the philosophies of Goethe and Nietzsche, he rejects linear progression, and instead presents a world
view based on the cyclical rise and decline of civilizations. He argues that a culture blossoms from the soil of a definable landscape and dies when it has exhausted all of its possibilities.
Despite Spengler's reputation today as an extreme pessimist, The Decline of the West remains essential reading for anyone interested in the history of civilization.
The Decline of the West (Oxford Paperbacks)
The Decline of the West (Oxford Paperbacks),Oswald Spengler,Helmut Werner,H. Stuart Hughes,Arthur Helps,Charles Francis Atkinson,Oxford University Press, USA,0195066340,Aesthetics,Civilization,History,History - General History,History: American,Philosophy,World - General,Cultural studies,History / World,History, World
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