The Decline of the West
Learn about this topic in these articles:
1920’s political setting
- In 20th-century international relations: The search for a new stability
Oswald Spengler’s 1918–22 best-seller The Decline of the West mourned the engulfing of Kultur by the cosmopolitan anthill of Zivilisation and argued that only a dictatorship could arrest the decline. Sociologist Max Weber hoped for charismatic leadership to overcome bureaucracy. Much painting, music, and film of the 1920s illustrated…
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comparison with Toynbee’s work
- In Arnold J. Toynbee
Unlike Spengler in his The Decline of the West, Toynbee did not regard the death of a civilization as inevitable, for it may or may not continue to respond to successive challenges. Unlike Karl Marx, he saw history as shaped by spiritual, not economic forces.
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contribution to philosophy of history
- In philosophy of history: Later systems
…Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1918–22; The Decline of the West), wherein the history of humankind is presented in terms of biologically conceived cultures whose careers conformed to a predetermined course of growth and decay, was widely acclaimed during the years of disillusionment that followed World War I; and a somewhat…
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discussed in biography
- In Oswald Spengler
(1918–22; The Decline of the West), a major contribution to social theory.
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