BK146

INTRODUCTION:

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. This 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. It also includes a new introduction by H. Stuart Hughes. In this engrossing and highly controversial philosophy of history, Spengler describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "would-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity. 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.

"Apocalyptic in tone, it is a massive, somber interpretation of the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations, much in the spirit and tradition of historical analysis displayed by another twentieth-century prophet, Arnold J. Toynbee... The contemporary reader will find much that is stimulating in Spengler's criticism of our age." - San Francisco Chronicle

"What [Spengler] wrote was an epic poem... The lesson to be learned from him is that writers too can be seismographs; the trembling of Spengler's themes signaled the coming of the Nazi earthquake."

Oswald Spengler, one of the most controversial historians of the twentieth century, was born in Blankenberg, Germany in 1880 and died in Munich in 1936. H. Stuart Hughes is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of California at San Diego. He is the author of many books, including Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate, Consciousness and Society and, most recently, Sophisticated Rebels.