The Decline of the West (Oxford Paperbacks)

In music, there is the technique of audio being "remastered," which due to its labor, is generally only worth the hassle for an important album. I'm a fool for buying this product simply on the strength and importance of Spengler's work. It never occurred to me that a publisher would treat Spengler in such a slapdash fashion. If it was my publishing company, I might have taken the time to retype the text to achieve crisp, vectored readability. Desktop publishing has been around for three decades now. Make no mistake: this so-called book is a Xerox print bound between two pieces of cardboard. I'll have to seek a vintage hardbound print elsewhere.

There is hardly a book written in the past 150 years that can surpass Spengler's 'Decline of the West' in the depth of understanding, interpreting and explaining the logic behind cultural phenomena and its relationship to the historical development of civilizations in general. This is 'THE THEORY of EVERYTHING' in the field of Humanities. Moreover, if you are an open-minded student and the 'college progressivism' hasn't infected your brain, this book will open your eyes to a whole new level of understanding that will allow you to look at the world more wisely. So remember, your social science professor might not be pleased that you are reading Spengler and not Marx.

I'm only 3/4 of the way through this dense text and if anything changes I will edit this accordingly.Spengler clearly possesses an immense foundation of erudition, in which he heavily relies on as opposed to postulating new ideals, concepts, or even displaying his poetic prowess. The text appears to be far more interesting than it actually is, given that it was the philosophical basis for Francis Parker Yockey's Imperium (which is the whole reason why I'm reading it in the first place as a sort of prequel). For the majority of the book (and this is an understatement really), Spengler seems to divert from his thesis of higher culture and its transition into civilization (the end of high culture). This is for at least the first 1/4 of the text. The prefaces written by other authors really encapsulate Spengler's best ideas, especially Spengler's prophecy of a coming Caesar or sort of a Mahdi figure in Islamic lore that would become the future Emperor of the West (I can see where Yockey would get the idea of an "Imperium" from). Written prior to the ascension of Adolf Hitler, it is said in the prefaces that Spengler denied Hitler as being this Caesar.Spengler's thesis is quite oxymoron especially when it comes to race. He views culture as organisms, that live and die, but when it comes to race, the biological entities that encompass these cultures, he denies race as a mere abstract concept like most Postmodernist thinkers of today. If culture is an organism, it is an organism because of the collective, homogeneous biological entity that constitutes said nation. Spengler's view of race paves the way for Progressive Nationalism or Civic Nationalism, and in the age of Trumpism we are not witnessing that just because one feels "American" does not unite all the races within a multicultural, motley state. The Hitlerist Darwanistic view of race fulfilled the abstract abyss of Spenglerian racial thought. I don't not know why Spengler is revered in many far-right and alternative right circles. Maybe it's because Yockey extracted so much from him, I'm not sure (I'm almost certain that Yockey adopted Spengler's exact view on race). But I can say for certain that many did not actually understand Spengler.

Decline of the west is a beautifully written book that takes a comparative analysis of systems of culture across the world, and then a larger analysis of the "Western" culture and how its story fits the greater system of humanity. It's grand prediction is that eventually the 'faustian man' of the west will soon begin to question all of the foundations which creates and maintains western civilization, causing a caesarian moment, a great decline, and a resurgence of new warring cultures.He takes a large analysis over the "Seasons" of different cultures, expanding from the essential parts of its mathematical roots, expanding on the Nietzschean worldview to the anthropological field and further into geopolitics.However true or factual his statements may be, he sort of takes a lackluster "Facts over truth" that he believes elevates what he says over all other intellects. As if his worldview and viewpoints are somewhat more real than others because he can self-assess it, although he fails to realize that his systems are just as rooted as any other.His predictions and assessments of his contemporary are also shaky, where he is comparing the 'soulful' timeless creations, which survived history, with the 'soulless' everything of his modernity, not seeing that what makes something of great value is time itself. So naturally, at every given time, we can make the mistake of believing that nothing of which our modern times create has value. Yet we see that there is much of the early 20th century that have survived and are of great value to us, even comparable to the great works of his reference.Over all I believe it to be an essential read to understanding the core foundations of conservative thought, in a very tangible academic viewpoint, essential but too often missed in understanding today's politics.

Spengler's writing was the underpinning of James Blish's okie/cities books. I read this book because of my enjoyment of Blish's books and recommend it if you want to help understand his underpinning inspiration. When published in 1918, The Decline .... was a worldwide success and resulted in much comment from intellectuals of the time and later. A more than worthwhile read in its own right.

Save your money. Each page of this kindle edition is scanned directly from the original book, meaning that you are extremely limited in how far you can zoom in to the text. Many readers will find the tiny font size unreadable. You can't underline/take note of anything either, so it's useless for any academic purposes (you can, however, see where the owner of the original book has made their notes.)Seriously. Don't bother.

A key book especially in its observations that a money-serrving oligarchy is the natural end of the democracies

The formatting of this is terrible. Pages and paragraphs begin and end with no rhyme or reason.I would not recommend purchasing a copy of it as it isn't readable.

Thought provoking. Contestable, but quite a tour de force.