Oswald Spengler

Oswald Arnold Got­tfried Spen­gler, Ger­man author, philoso­pher, histori­an (1880–1936)

Oswald Spengler

Petri Liukko­nen wrote a to.sci.fi/spengle.htm”>bio and back­grounder on Spen­g­ler­ian phi­los­o­phy that includes a select­ed bib­li­og­ra­phy.

[wikipedia] [quotes]

Spen­gler’s influ­ence spread quick­ly through­out Ger­many and the world. Dur­ing WWII his works were banned by the Nazis. He influ­enced many key Euro­pean and Amer­i­can writ­ers and thinkers, includ­ing Thomas Mann, F. Scott Fitzger­ald, Hen­ry Miller, John dos Pas­sos, Jack Ker­ouac, William S. Bur­roughs, Allen Gins­berg, Wil­helm Furtwän­gler, Oskar Kokosch­ka, R. Buck­min­ster Fuller, and oth­ers into the 21st cen­tu­ry.

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Books

The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes)

[amazonify]0195066340[/amazonify]

Title also trans­lat­ed as The Down­fall of the Occi­dent. An immense work, his most famous, describ­ing a civ­i­liza­tion’s emer­gency, clas­si­cal glo­ry, and descent into deca­dence, decay and final destruc­tion. If Spen­gler was a mod­ern-day Gib­bon, this is unques­tion­ably the new equiv­a­lent of [amazonify]0753818817::text::::The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire[/amazonify]. [wikipedia]

The [amazonify]3491961904::text::::German edi­tion is still avail­able in hardcover[/amazonify]. There is a brief overview with Eng­lish-lan­guage excerpts online; Spen­gler expert Don­ald O. White has pub­lished many Eng­lish-lan­guage extracts from TDOTW:

The Hour of Decision (1934)

Banned by the Nazis, this book con­tains the quo­ta­tion, “Social­ism is noth­ing but the cap­i­tal­ism of the low­er class­es.”

Cur­rent­ly [amazonify]1410202666::text::::available in paperback[/amazonify], this book is also online, in trans­la­tion, by White:

Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life

The Eng­lish trans­la­tion is cur­rent­ly [amazonify]0898759838::text::::available in paperback[/amazonify].

Prussianism And Socialism

White has pub­lished a com­plete Eng­lish trans­la­tion of this book.

Selected Essays

In June 2004, White pub­lished a new Eng­lish trans­la­tion of these essays:

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Works about Spengler and TDOTW

Oswald Spen­gler’s Uneven Lega­cy” by Don­ald L. Stockton is a long overview of Spen­gler, The Decline of the West and its lega­cy, plac­ing Spen­gler in the histor­i­cal per­spec­tive.

Oswald Spen­gler: An Intro­duc­tion to his Life and Ideas” by Kei­th Stime­ly dis­cuss­es Spen­gler’s life and work, with sec­tions on the Spen­g­ler­ian con­cepts of “high cul­tures” and the “organ­ic” devel­op­ment of civ­i­liza­tions.

For further reference

[amazonify]0195066340[/amazonify] [amazonify]1400097002[/amazonify] [amazonify]0898759838[/amazonify] [amazonify]1410202666[/amazonify]
[amazonify]3491961904[/amazonify] [amazonify]8423974464[/amazonify] [amazonify]B000KK8EQ2[/amazonify] [amazonify]B000V7SBOY[/amazonify]

First published on February 26th, 2009 at 12:02 pm (EST) and last modified on March 31st, 2009 at 10:24 am (EST).


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