Oswald Spengler

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler (29 May 1880 - 8 May 1936) was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations. In 1920 Spengler produced Prussiandom and Socialism (Preu entum und Sozialismus), which argued for an organic, nationalist version of socialism and authoritarianism. He wrote extensively throughout World War I and the interwar period, and supported German hegemony in Europe. Some National Socialists (such as Goebbels) held Spengler as an intellectual precursor but he was ostracised after 1933 for his pessimism about Germany and Europe's future, his refusal to support Nazi ideas of racial superiority, and his critical work The Hour of Decision.