The Decline of the West (German: Der Untergang des Abendlandes), or The Downfall of the Occident,
is a two-volume work by Oswald Spengler, the first volume of which was published in the
summer of 1918. Spengler revised this volume in 1922 and published the second
volume, subtitled Perspectives of World History, in 1923.
The book introduces itself as a "Copernican
overturning" operating as a paradigm shift involving the rejection of theEurocentric view of history, especially the division
of history into the linear "ancient-medieval-modern" rubric. According to Spengler, the meaningful
units for history are not epochs but whole cultures which evolve as organisms. He recognizes at least eight high cultures: Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Mesoamerican (Mayan/Aztec), Classical (Greek/Roman),Arabian, Western or "European-American." Cultures
have a lifespan of about a thousand years. The final stage of each culture is,
in his word use, a "civilization".
Spengler also presents the idea of Muslims, Jews and Christians, as well as their Persian and Semitic forebears, beingMagian; Mediterranean
cultures of
the antiquity such as Ancient Greece and Rome being Apollonian; and the modernWesterners being Faustian.
According to Spengler, the Western world is
ending and we are witnessing the last season—"winter time"—of
Faustian Civilization. In Spengler's depiction, Western Man is a proud but
tragic figure because, while he strives and creates, he secretly knows the
actual goal will never be reached.
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