Volume 1, Number 2 · June 1, 1963
Spengler
By H. Stuart Hughes
Man and Technics
by Oswald Spengler, translated by C.F. Atkinson
Knopf, $3.50
The Hour of Decision
by Oswald Spengler, translated by C.F. Atkinson
Knopf, $5.00
It is characteristic of Alfred Knopf's loyalty to authors he has long esteemed to have reissued two of Spengler's minor writings which have been out of print for ten years. In terms either of sales or of intrinsic merit, I question whether the books deserve such attention. They are dated, chaotic and intellectually disreputable; it is difficult to see what the public of the 1960s will make of these tracts written only a generation ago, yet under such totally different circumstances. But now that Knopf has performed his quixotic gesture, we can only be grateful to him. It means that the corpus of Spengler's translated work is back in print again and that we can see him in perspective as something more (or less) than the author of The Decline of the West; we can rediscover the second role which Spengler himself considered as important as his historical writing—his function as political spokesman and national prophet.
Review, 1165 words
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