About the book: 2023 / The figure of Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) stands apart in the history of German and world thought. Spengler single-handedly tried to rethink the generally accepted views on the evolutionary development of mankind: he opposed the linear description of history as endless, unstoppable progress. Instead, he proposed the concept of cyclical development, according to which new cultures arise, experience a period of prosperity, and then go through stages of decline and death. Each such cycle lasts about a thousand years, each culture has distinctive features that determine the thinking and actions of people. The very title of the work already contains the thesis that was substantiated in the book - at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the culture of the Western world, according to Spengler, came to a period of decline. The first volume of the book was published in 1918, bringing the author great fame and causing heated discussions. This work had a significant influence on sociologists Arnold Joseph Toynbee, Pitirim Sorokin, Jose Ortega y Gasset. The publishing design is preserved in PDF A4 format.