Oswald Spengler has 2 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 4 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is Man and Technics.
Man and Technics
Summary
In this new and revised edition of Oswald Spengler's classic Man and Technics, Spengler makes a number of predictions that today, more than 80 years after the book was first published, have turned out to be remarkably accurate. Spengler predicted that industrialization would lead to serious environmental problems and that countless species would become extinct. He also predicted that labor from Third World countries would increasingly outcompete Western workers by doing the same work for much lower wages and that industrial production would therefore move to other parts of the world, such as East Asia, India, and South America. According to Spengler, technology has not only made it possible for man to harness the forces of nature; it has also alienated him from nature. Modern technology now dominates our culture instead of that which is natural and organic. After having made himself the master of nature, man has himself become technology's slave. "The victor, crashed, is dragged to death by the team," Spengler summarizes. Finally, Spengler foresaw that Western man would eventually grow weary of his increasingly artificial lifestyle and begin to hate the civilization he himself created. There is no way out of this conundrum, as the unrelenting progress of technological development cannot be halted. The current high-tech culture of the West is therefore doomed, destined to be consumed from within and destroyed. A time will come, Spengler writes, when our giant cities and skyscrapers have fallen in ruins and lie forgotten "[J]ust like the palaces of old Memphis and Babylon." It remains to be seen if this last, and most dire, of Spengler's prophecies will also come true.
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The Decline of the West
Summary
The Decline of the West - Volume 1 published in 1917, Volume 2 in 1922 - has exercised and challenged opinion ever since. It was a huge undertaking by Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), formerly an unpublished historian and philosopher who set out to radically reconsider history - the rise and fall of world civilisations and their cultures. His primary view was to reject the established Eurocentric paradigm (ancient/classical, Medieval - and, following the Renaissance - modern) and to take a totally new perspective. First and foremost, his intention was to offer a world overview; and on that basis to present and discuss the premise that the story of the history of man followed a fundamental pattern wherever on the globe it arose. Of particular interest to him were the characteristics of the separate and distinct cultures (established through developments in science, mathematics and the arts). The major cultures he identifies are Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Mesoamerican (Mayan-Aztec), classical (Greek/Roman), Arabian and Western (European and American). Spengler offered another division - three distinct phases: Magian (societies dominated by monotheism - Persian as well as Semitic religions), Apollonian (ancient Greece and Rome) and Faustian (the ‘modern Western societies’ of his time). All these civilisations can be seen to emerge and decline in seasonal form depicted in terms of spring, summer, autumn, winter. Within the context of this map comes the detail. Spengler drew on his broad reading to tell the story, to make the links, to ink in the patterns. His breadth of sources and insights of observations and (strongly defined) opinions is fascinating and often persuasive but sometimes contentious. Inevitably, for such an ambitious work, it has garnered controversy since it first appeared. Certainly for a generation it was required reading. First appearing in Germany (it was finally released in one volume in 1923 and translated into other languages) its reception was coloured by the timing. Both admired and criticised, it had its base in a Germany undergoing severe economic and psychological difficulties, only to be swept aside by the rise of Nazism. Spengler rejected the racism of Nazism, but his strong attitudes (acknowledging, unapologetically, the effect of ‘imperial' individuals on history, whether through military, political or commercial activities) were often characterised as unfailingly right-wing. Not surprisingly, The Decline of the West has been in and out of fashion in the academic world, but also in its more popular appeal. However, in the dramatically changing world of the 21st century, there are resonances which are impossible to ignore. ‘The man of action is always conscienceless,’ said Goethe, one of Spengler’s two main mentors (the other is Nietzsche). But Spengler is unequivocal in his conclusion - as one commentator wrote, ‘Spengler’s prophecy that Western Europe would lose its world hegemony has been fulfilled. Must Western culture also go under?’ Spengler has been accused of pessimism, and The Decline of the West is certainly an uncompromising book to read. But in the preface he is essentially circumspect about his purpose: ‘Is there a logic of history? Is there, beyond all the casual and incalculable elements of the separate event, something that we may call a metaphysical structure of historic humanity, something that is essentially independent of outward forms - social, spiritual and political - which we see so clearly?’ Peter Wickham brings his extensive background in the recording of major classical texts to make this immense work an absorbing listening experience. Translation: Charles Francis Atkinson. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
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