Prophet of Decline: Spengler on World History and Politics
"Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) is best known for The Decline of the West, in which he propounded his pathbreaking philosophy of world history and penetrating diagnosis of the crisis of modernity." "In Prophet of Decline, John Farrenkopf takes advantage of the perspective the new millennium provides to reassess this visionary thinker and his challenging ideas on history, politics, and modern civilization. Farenkopf's assessment ranges widely, covering Spengler's ideas on democracy, capitalism,...
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"Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) is best known for The Decline of the West, in which he propounded his pathbreaking philosophy of world history and penetrating diagnosis of the crisis of modernity." "In Prophet of Decline, John Farrenkopf takes advantage of the perspective the new millennium provides to reassess this visionary thinker and his challenging ideas on history, politics, and modern civilization. Farenkopf's assessment ranges widely, covering Spengler's ideas on democracy, capitalism, science and technology, cities, Western art, social change, and human exploitation of the environment. He also illuminates the implications of Spengler's thought for contemplating from a fresh view-point the future of the United States, the leading power of the West." "Farrenkopf proves that the conventional picture of Spengler as a consistently antidemocratic thinker is not only simplistic, but erroneous. Drawing upon Spengler's private papers, he advances a bold new interpretation of the evolution of Spengler's political thought, uncovering an early phase, in the years before Germany's traumatic defeat in World War I during which Spengler was a conservative advocate of the quasi-democratization of the Second Reich. He examines Spengler's relationship to German historicism, his place in the German traditions of cultural pessimism and Realpolitik, and his critical stance toward Nazism."--BOOK JACKET.
ForewordAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsNote on the Spengler ArchiveIntroduction11Heraclitus, the "Dark One"52The Decline of the West173The Decline of the West: Spengler and the German Tradition of Historicism774The Decline of the West: Diverse Intellectual Sources and Influences915The Decline of the West: A Controversy Without End1006The Transformation of Spengler's Political Philosophy1137Spengler, the Neo-Rankeans, and the Pan-Germans1338Prussianism and Socialism and the Faustian Imperium Mundi1459Spengler's Political Phase in the Twenties16610Man and Technics: A Reassessment18811The Transformation of Spengler's Philosophy of World History21412Spengler and the Approaching Second World War234Conclusion: Spengler and Political Realism269Index291
