Morphology of Culture

Oswald Spengler Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (1880–1936) was born in Blankenburg, Germany, the son of a postal official. He trained in mathematics and natural science, taught briefly at secondary level, and then devoted himself entirely to writing as an independent author in Munich. His magnum opus, The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in two volumes — Form and Actuality (1918) and Perspectives of World History (1922) — turned him almost overnight into one of the most discussed authors of interwar Europe: the first volume appeared just months before Germany’s defeat in the First World War, and its title seemed to prophesy the collapse then under way. ...