The Idea of Decline in Western History
by Arthur Herman
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Historian Arthur Herman traces the roots of declinism and shows how major thinkers, past and present, have contributed to its development as a coherent ideology of cultural pessimism. From Nazism to the Sixties counterculture, from Britain's Fabian socialists to America's multiculturalists, and from Dracula and Freud to Robert Bly and Madonna, this work examines the idea of decline in Western history and sets out to explain how the conviction of civilization's inevitable end has become a show more fixed part of the modern Western imagination. Through a series of biographical portraits spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, the author traces the roots of declinism and aims to show how major thinkers of the past and present, including Nietzsche, DuBois, Sartre, and Foucault, have contributed to its development as a coherent ideology of cultural pessimism. show lessTags
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Gegenstand des Buches ist der sogenannte Kulturpessimismus. Er sagt sich los von den traditionellen aufklärerischen Fortschrittsvorstellungen und prognostiziert das Ende der abendländischen Zivilisation mit ihren liberalen Demokratien, ihrer instrumentellen Naturherrschaft und ihrer kapitalistischen Wirtschaftsordnung. Doch während etwa die historischen Pessimisten diesen Niedergang show more bedauern, begrüßen die Kulturpessimisten das Ende der abendländischen Zivilisation, da sie in ihren Augen nichts Besseres verdient hat. show less
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Author Information
16+ Works 6,297 Members
Arthur Herman, PhD, is the author of the New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World, which has sold a half million copies worldwide, and Gandhi and Churchill, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is the author of six previous books and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.
Classifications
- Genres
- Nonfiction, History, General Nonfiction, Philosophy
- DDC/MDS
- 909.09812 — History & geography History World history Other Geographic Classifications Other Classifications Hemispheres Western
- LCC
- CB245 .H429 — Auxiliary Sciences of History History of Civilization History of Civilization Civilization and race
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 191
- Popularity
- 171,330
- Rating
- (3.96)
- Languages
- English, German, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 2
