![]() ![]() Civilization's preoccupation is with the enjoyment of material comforts the sequence from “culture” to “civilization” represents the very antithesis of progress. “Civilization,” in Spengler's vision, was a stage that follows cultural flowering-creative manifestations of the culture's unique soul expressed in art and thought. In Spengler's interpretation, imbued with cultural and historical pessimism, the West was exhibiting symptoms found in earlier civilizations in decline. ![]() (It remains in print.) It presents an enormously ambitious tableau of universal history seen as the unfolding of the fates of eight cultures, with a focus on four main strands: Indian, Classical, Arabian, and Western. The Decline of the West, published in 19 (English translation, 1928), in its time attracted much public and professional attention. The German historian Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), whose membership in the academic fraternity of his discipline has often been questioned, was an exception. ![]() Historians are professionally averse to grand civilizational themes, especially where predictions may be entailed. ![]()
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