But the latent pessimism - combined with some of the odder aspects of the book - put Spengler out of synch with later, more optimistic, social attitudes (the fact that he was an anti-democratic, anti-liberal reactionary with some weird mystical tendencies probably didn't help either). As late as the 1950s, it was a favourite of Jack Kerouac and the Beat poets (Kerouac took the word fellaheen from Spengler). The Decline of the West was a best-seller in the 1920s, and one of the most widely discussed intellectual works of the inter-war era. A uniquely pessimistic framework at that, one inspired by Goethe and Nietzsche, and one best remembered for Spengler's view that grim determinism will bring an end to Western Civilisation. It is nothing less than a monumental attempt at fitting the sum of human learning into a particular historical framework. His interests were spectacularly broad, and he is not afraid to show it - The Decline of the West is not a history book in any conventional sense, nor is it even a philosophical text (though that is a better fit).
In recent years it has even become strangely topical - but we'll get to that.Īs a background, Spengler was a German polymath, moonlighting as a school teacher. But it is unquestionably interesting reading, so I thought I would review a work few now bother with. It's not light reading, not at all, and the sheer size of the combined volumes makes it a proverbial door-stopper. After a good fortnight's reading, I have managed to work through the two volume, unabridged, edition of Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West (1918-1923).
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