First published in 1934, the majority of this book was developed just prior to the Nazi seizure of power, with additional material which reflects on its aftermath. It assessed the decline of European power and the crisis of Western civilization in the face of conflict between the ruling class and the lower classes, arguing that only by adherence to their inherited 'Prussianism' would Germany have the solidity to be able to combat these dangers. Despite the influence of his previous writings on key Nazi figures, his criticisms of National Socialism led to the book being banned, although not before it had been widely distributed throughout Germany. This work will be of interest to students of 20th century German and European history.

First published in 1932, this book, based on an address delivered in 1931, presents a concise and lucid summary of the philosophy of the author of The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler. It was his conviction that the technical age - the culture of the machine age - which man had created in virtue of his unique capacity for individual as well as racial technique, had already reached its peak, and that the future held only catastrophe. He argued it lacked progressive cultural life and instead was dominated by a lust for power and possession. The triumph of the machine led to mass regimentation rather than fewer workers and less work - spelling the doom of Western civilization.

First published in 1934, the majority of this book was developed just prior to the Nazi seizure of power, with additional material which reflects on its aftermath. It assessed the decline of European power and the crisis of Western civilization in the face of conflict between the ruling class and the lower classes, arguing that only by adherence to their inherited 'Prussianism' would Germany have the solidity to be able to combat these dangers. Despite the influence of his previous writings on key Nazi figures, his criticisms of National Socialism led to the book being banned, although not before it had been widely distributed throughout Germany. This work will be of interest to students of 20th century German and European history.

First published in 1932, this book, based on an address delivered in 1931, presents a concise and lucid summary of the philosophy of the author of The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler. It was his conviction that the technical age - the culture of the machine age - which man had created in virtue of his unique capacity for individual as well as racial technique, had already reached its peak, and that the future held only catastrophe. He argued it lacked progressive cultural life and instead was dominated by a lust for power and possession. The triumph of the machine led to mass regimentation rather than fewer workers and less work - spelling the doom of Western civilization.

The Decline of the West Volume I: Form and Actuality
By Oswald Spengler
Contents
I-Introduction
II-The Meaning of Numbers
III-The Problem of World-history--Physiognomic and Systematic
IV-The Problem of World-history--The Destiny-idea and the Causality-principle
V-Makrokosmos--The Symbolism of the World-picture and the Problem of Space
VI-Makrokosmos--Apollinian, Faustian, and Magian Soul
VII-Music and Plastic--The Arts of Form
VIII-Music and Plastic--Act and Portrait
IX-Soul-image and Life-feeling--On the Form of the Soul
X-Soul-image and Life-feeling--Buddhism, Stoicism, and Socialism
XI-Faustian and Apollinian Nature-Knowledge
Introduction
In this book is attempted for the first time the venture of predetermining history, of following the still untravelled stages in the destiny of a Culture, and specifically of the only Culture of our time and on our planet which is actually in the phase of fulfilment--the West-European-American.
Hitherto the possibility of solving a problem so far-reaching has evidently never been envisaged, and even if it had been so, the means of dealing with it were either altogether unsuspected or, at best, inadequately used.
Is there a logic of history? Is there, beyond all the casual and incalculable elements of the separate events, something that we may call a metaphysical structure of historic humanity, something that is essentially independent of the outward forms--social, spiritual and political--which we see so clearly? Are not these actualities indeed secondary or derived from that something? Does world-history present to the seeing eye certain grand traits, again and again, with sufficient constancy to justify certain conclusions? And if so, what are the limits to which reasoning from such premisses may be pushed?
Is it possible to find in life itself--for human history is the sum of mighty life-courses which already have had to be endowed with ego and personality, in customary thought and expression, by predicating entities of a higher order like "the Classical" or "the Chinese Culture," "Modern Civilization"--a series of stages which must be traversed, and traversed moreover in an ordered and obligatory sequence? For everything organic the notions of birth, death, youth, age, lifetime are fundamentals--may not these notions, in this sphere also, possess a rigorous meaning which no one has as yet extracted? In short, is all history founded upon general biographic archetypes?
The decline of the West, which at first sight may appear, like the corresponding decline of the Classical Culture, a phenomenon limited in time and space, we now perceive to be a philosophical problem that, when comprehended...
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Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices.
This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making.
We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.

The Decline of the West Volume II: Perspectives of World-History
By Oswald Spengler
Contents
I-Origin and Language--The Cosmic and the Microcosm
II-Origin and Language--The Group of the Higher Cultures
III-Origin and Language--The Relations between the Cultures
IV-Cities and Peoples--The Soul of the City
V-Cities and Peoples--Peoples, Races, Tongues
VI-Cities and Peoples--Primitives, Culture-Peoples, Fellaheen
VII-Problems of the Arabian Culture--Historic Pseudomorphoses
VIII-Problems of the Arabian Culture--The Magian Soul
IX-Problems of the Arabian Culture--Pythagoras, Mohammed, Cromwell
X-The State--The Problem of the Estates: Nobility and Priesthood
XI-The State--State and History
XII-The State--Philosophy of Politics
XIII-The Form-world of Economic Life--Money
XIV-The Form-world of Economic Life--The Machine
Excerpt from Chapter I
Regard the flowers at eventide as, one after the other, they close in the setting sun. Strange is the feeling that then presses in upon you--a feeling of enigmatic fear in the presence of this blind dreamlike earth-bound existence. The dumb forest, the silent meadows, this bush, that twig, do not stir themselves, it is the wind that plays with them. Only the little gnat is free--he dances still in the evening light, he moves whither he will.
A plant is nothing on its own account. It forms a part of the landscape in which a chance made it take root. The twilight, the chill, the closing of every flower--these are not cause and effect, not danger and willed answer to danger. They are a single process of nature, which is accomplishing itself near, with, and in the plant. The individual is not free to look out for itself, will for itself, or choose for itself.
An animal, on the contrary, can choose. It is emancipated from the servitude of all the rest of the world. This midget swarm that dances on and on, that solitary bird still flying through the evening, the fox approaching furtively the nest--these are little worlds of their own within another great world. An animalcule in a drop of water, too tiny to be perceived by the human eye, though it lasts but a second and has but a corner of this drop as its field--nevertheless is free and independent in the face of the universe. The giant oak, upon one of whose leaves the droplet hangs, is not.
Servitude and freedom--this is in last and deepest analysis the differentia by which we distinguish vegetable and animal existence. Yet only the plant is wholly and entirely what ti is; in the being of the animal there is something dual. A vegetable is only a vegetable; an animal is a vegetable and something more besides. A herd that huddles together trembling...
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Windham Press is committed to bringing the lost cultural heritage of ages past into the 21st century through high-quality reproductions of original, classic printed works at affordable prices.
This book has been carefully crafted to utilize the original images of antique books rather than error-prone OCR text. This also preserves the work of the original typesetters of these classics, unknown craftsmen who laid out the text, often by hand, of each and every page you will read. Their subtle art involving judgment and interaction with the text is in many ways superior and more human than the mechanical methods utilized today, and gave each book a unique, hand-crafted feel in its text that connected the reader organically to the art of bindery and book-making.
We think these benefits are worth the occasional imperfection resulting from the age of these books at the time of scanning, and their vintage feel provides a connection to the past that goes beyond the mere words of the text.

Since its first publication more than eighty years ago, "The Decline of the West" has ranked as one of the most widely read and talked about books of our time. A sweeping account of Western culture by a historian of legendary intellect, it is an astonishingly informed, forcefully eloquent, thrillingly controversial work that advances a world view based on the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations.
This abridgment presents the most significant of Oswald Spengler's arguments, linked by illuminating explanatory passages. It makes available in one volume a masterpiece of grand-scale history and far-reaching prophesy that remains essential reading for anyone interested in the factors that determine the course of civilizations.