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."