Spengler's Prussian Socialism. (15th May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lewis, Ben
• Is Part Of: European review. Volume 25:Number 3(2017)
• Page Start: 479
• Page End: 493
• Publication Date: 2017-05-15
• Subjects: Learned institutions and societies -- Europe -- Periodicals; 940
• DOI: 10.1017/S1062798717000060
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1062-7987

Abstract

Abstract : Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) was one of the most significant thinkers of the Weimar Republic, Germany's first democracy. His work, notably the two-volume, 1200-page Der Untergang des Abendlandes ( Decline of the West, 1918/22), had a profound influence on the intellectual discourses of the time in Germany and beyond. 1 Yet, despite the high esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries, his thought has been seriously under-researched. In English, only four major studies have appeared in the last 70 years. 2 This is all the more surprising in that the historical period in which he wrote has been extensively covered by both English- and German-language scholars and that some of the thinkers who drew critically on his ideas, such as Heidegger and Adorno, have become household names in Germany intellectual history.