The Decline Of The West Perspectives Of World History

Spengler's work describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity, and his controversial ideas spark debate over the meaning of historiography.

"Corrigenda to volume I" (2 leaves) laid in. [v. 1] Form and actuality.--v. 2. Perspectives of world-history.

Contains Spengler's well-known work on the history of and the rise and fall of various civilizations.

In the second and more controversial, albeit optimistic, volume of The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler deals with the world historical perspectives of his comparative cultural morphology. The periodical calm surrounding the constant and eternally recurring movements, described in the first volume, is over. Spengler develops his theory of "Caesarism" - a tendency towards dictatorship peculiar to mass democracy. According to Spengler, today we live in the decadent stage of civilization. Previously, the people of culture used money for buying and selling while their main thoughts and occupations lay elsewhere. The people of civilization, however, exclusively think in terms of money and nothing else. That is why our period is also marked by rapacious oligarchs, cunning stock market manipulation, a flourishing art trade and boundless corruption. Only the return of the eternal values of blood and race, through the coming of the Caesars, can destroy the tyranny of the financial mind. Thus Caesarism will bring the victory of strength politics over capital, breaking the pecuniary power and promoting national welfare. The scene is set for the final battle between the forces of plutocracy and chaos and the political will and order of the Caesars.

This abridgment of Spengler's great classic, prepared by the German scholar Helmut Werner with the blessing of the Spengler estate, consists of selections from the original (the complete, authorized English translation by Charles Francis Atkinson), linked by explanatory passages which have been translated by Arthur Helps. -- from dust jacket.

Contains Spengler's well-known work on the history of and the rise and fall of various civilizations.

" ...the World-War was no longer a momentary constellation of casual facts due to national sentiments, personal influences, or economic tendencies, ...but the type of a historical change of phase occurring within a great historical organism of definable compass at the point preordained for it hundreds of years ago." -Oswald Spengler, Decline of the West Vol. I, 1914 The Decline of the West, Volume II: Perspectives of World-History by German historian Oswald Spengler, originally published in German as Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Vol. II in 1922), became an instant success in Germany after its defeat in World War I. Spengler's description of the end of the Western world and the implication that Germany was part of this larger historical process resonated with the German readers. He described great cultures following a cycle from inception to expansion followed by death. By understanding this cycle, one could reconstruct the past and predict the future. He specifically predicted that in the final stage of Western civilization, in the 20th century, Caesarism, a new and overpowering leadership would arise, replacing individualism, liberalism and democracy. Even though this book was criticized by scholars, it became a bestseller in the 1920s and laid the foundation for the social cycle theory, which states that stages of history generally repeat themselves in cycles.