Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (29 May 1880, Blankenburg am Harz, then Duchy of Brunswick, German Empire 8 May 1936, Munich, Germany) 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), which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations. After Decline was published in 1918, Spengler produced his Prussianism and Socialism in 1920, in which he argued for an organic version of socialism and authoritarianism. He wrote extensively throughout World War I and the interwar period, and supported German hegemony in Europe. The National Socialists held Spengler as an intellectual precursor.
-Francis Parker Yockey claimed Spengler was a pivotal influence on him and wrote Imperium as a sequel to The Decline of the West. Yockey called Spengler “The Philosopher of the Twentieth Century.”
-Communal readings of The Decline of the West held great influence over the founding members of the Beat Generation. Spengler’s vision of the cyclical nature of civilization and the contemporaneity of the end of the Western European cycle led William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg to look for the seeds of the next cycle in the communities of which they were a part.
-The Hour of Decision influenced Malcolm X’s views on economics and his critiques of capitalism. Malcolm X agreed with Spengler’s prediction that class conflict would eventually be surpassed by Racial Conflict. When asked about Karl Marx, Malcolm X (who had never read Marx) stated that he agreed with Spengler’s view of social class and economic systems as secondary to racial identity.
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