Tag Archives: History

Tree Spirits in The Golden Bough

Posted on March 14, 2020 by Lee

In spring, early summer, or midsummer the villagers would go out into the woods to cut down a tree. They’d bring it back to the village and set it up there (“amid general rejoicings”); or, in other villages, they would … Continue reading →

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Spengler’s Logic of History

Posted on November 4, 2019 by Lee

Oswald Spengler tells us that he’s trying something new, a kind of historical study that he calls “predetermining history”: he’s going to use an historian’s methods in order to tell us something of what is going to happen. History is … Continue reading →

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Toynbee and the Enlightenment

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Lee

Arnold J Toynbee has some bad news in Volume VI of his A Study of History: Western civilisation is showing all the signs of being in its final decline. Civilisations decline when they fail to respond to challenges they face. … Continue reading →

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Reading Toynbee

Posted on November 27, 2017 by Lee

Perhaps there’s nothing you have to do and nowhere you have to be. You’re on your own, so you’ve only yourself to worry about. But what is there to worry about when you’ve only yourself to worry about? A quiet … Continue reading →

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Reading Toynbee A Study of History

Posted on May 31, 2017 by Lee

A society is a group whose members have shared problems. “There is no such thing as society” would be true if there were no shared problems, if each individual had only his or her own problems to worry about. “There … Continue reading →

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Spengler and Destiny

Posted on May 22, 2017 by Lee

I’ve been reading Oswald Spengler again, and what he writes about destiny. If you’re going to discover your destiny – the destiny of your culture, of your family, or your own personal destiny – you need to get out of … Continue reading →

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The Silence of Ancient Egypt

Posted on February 5, 2017 by Lee

For two thousand years ancient Egypt was “dead but unburied.” It existed only as stone, as a lifeless monument to its living past. The pyramids have stood silent and blind for millennia, and to Toynbee they seemed to speak: “Before … Continue reading →

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Imagination and Evaluation in History: Spengler and Adorno

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Lee

Oswald Spengler: “Once again, therefore, there was an act like the act of Copernicus to be accomplished, an act of emancipation from the evident present in the name of infinity. This the Western soul achieved in the domain of Nature … Continue reading →

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A Note on Spengler and Historical Perspective

Posted on November 29, 2016 by Lee

The Western historian writes from her own “standpoint.” But she knows she must be objective, which means opening her eyes to the infinite differences and infinite distances of history, freeing herself as far as she can from the limitations of … Continue reading →

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