Since its first publication more than eighty years ago, The Decline of
the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and talked about
books of our time. A sweeping account of Western culture by a historian
of legendary intellect, it is an astonishingly informed, forcefully
eloquent, thrillingly controversial work that advances a world view
based on the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations.
This abridgment presents the most significant of Oswald Spengler's
arguments, linked by illuminating explanatory passages. It makes
available in one volume a masterpiece of grand-scale history and
far-reaching prophesy that remains essential reading for anyone
interested in the factors that determine the course of civilizations.