Oswald Spengler

Oswald Spengler , 1880-1936, German historian and philosopher. His studies covered many fields, among them mathematics, science, philosophy, history, and art. His major work, The Decline of the West (2 vol., 1918-22; tr. 1926-28), brought him worldwide fame. Spengler maintained that every culture passes a life cycle from youth through maturity and old age to death. Western culture, he believed, had proceeded through this same cycle and had entered the period of decline, from which there was no escape. Spengler upheld the ideal of obedience to the state and supported German hegemony in Europe. His refusal to support Nazi theories of racial superiority led to his ostracism after the Nazis came to power in 1933.

Bibliography: See critical study by H. S. Hughes (1952).

Spengler, Oswald (1880–1936) German philosophical historian. In The Decline of the West (1918–22), he expounded his theory that all civilizations are subject to an inevitable process of growth and decay, concluding that Western civilization was ending. His theory had some appeal in Germany in the 1930s.

Spenglerism the philosophy of the German philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), who in his book The Decline of the West (1918–22) argues that civilizations undergo a seasonal cycle of a thousand years and are subject to growth and decay analogous to biological species.