Those interested in the sweeping intellectual and emotional influence of Spengler on the 1920s and 30s might be interested in a new long review of the out-of-print book The Perennial Apocalypse: How the End of the World Shapes History (1998). Spengler’s ideas and their popular interpretations touched enduring writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and R.E. Howard. In science-fiction, Asimov’s ideas about psychohistory also spring to mind. Thus this new review seems relevant to mention here. The review states that the book looked at…
Spengler alongside a long tradition of historical models that all pointed towards an “end of history.” These summaries of historical narrative modes are the best parts of the book. The project of The Perennial Apocalypse is more ambitious than to provide summaries, though. […] The central argument of The Perennial Apocalypse is that prevailing historical models of how history should go, must inevitably go, play their part in shaping events. But history almost never proceeds in the predicted fashion as a result.
A fascinating idea, re: how intellectual doom-mongering and an associated wrong-headed consensus among the gullible classes and journalists, might act as bumpers on the fast-moving pinball-table of emerging historical events. It’s something I discuss from time to time, over on my 2020 blog, and there are other books on it such as Herman’s The Idea of Decline in Western History.
Yet, while the reviewer finds in the book an interesting and well-written discussion of the structural commonalities of such predictions, he also finds few examples of their strong influence on the flow of history…
Reilly never managed to give many thorough examples of this kind of process at work. The Perennial Apocalypse ends up dwelling far more on the stuff of the great totalizing narratives of history than how they manifest in intellectual spheres and end up steering society.
Too many variables in the mix, perhaps, which in a way is kind of encouraging. Since it might lead to the supposition that no matter how much the cultural elites try to ‘put bumpers on the pinball table of history’ or tilt the table to ‘correct’ it by pounding on it with their fist, they can’t ultimately beat the inbuilt structural elements of the table. Elements which inexorably channel the probabilities of the ball’s direction across an implacable and unreachable table-base. The pinball always ends up in the hole at the bottom of the table.
The book is said to be discursive and goes beyond its main thesis, to detour into…
obscure 19th century millenarian scientific romances, H.P. Lovecraft, theosophy, Christian eschatology, and the evils of the worlds envisioned by Arthur C. Clarke.
It sounds fascinating. The original promotional blurb ran…
In every culture, history is a story, and the end of that story is the end of the world. This work describes the surprising similarities among the various forms that the ‘end of history’ has taken around the world and throughout time. Further, it explores how the image of the end has affected actual historical events, from the rise of millenarian cults to the evolution of the idea of progress.
Regrettably the book now appears to be totally unavailable, unless one pops up on eBay or Abe. There’s not even an Amazon listing for it on either Amazon UK or USA. Although the table of contents is still available along with a free bit of Chapter 2. A good example, I’d suggest, of how certain early self-published POD books are likely to become the real collectable ultra-rarities for the mid 21st century book collector.
Staring into Chaos by Bruce Bander covers similar territory and is more widely available, but concentrates more on the theories of various doomsayer thinkers than their social influence.
Spengler had a huge influence during the interwar years on a wide range of people: Ernst Junger, H.P. Lovecraft, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Later, even Che Guevara had a copy of Decline of the West on his bookshelves.
The Perennial Apocalypse seems to have been written by the same John Reilly who ran a Spengler-influenced blog, mostly full of book reviews, that shut down a few years back.