The Idea of Decline in Western History [Hardcover]

Arthur Herman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 1997

From Nazism to the Sixties counter-culture, 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 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 shows 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In this ambitious and eminently relevant work of popular intellectual history, Arthur Herman, the coordinator of the Western civilization program at the Smithsonian Institution, makes a broad survey of the literature of cultural decline and a scatter-shot retort to the purveyors of doom and gloom. Herman attempts to right the balance unset by panicky prognosticators who either decry the defeat of Western values or herald the bankruptcy of Enlightenment idealism, despite the unparalleled worldwide ascendance of market economics, universal human rights, and representational, constitutional government.

Herman is at his best when making erudite replies to today's ill-informed peddlers of doom and gloom. But when he starts attempting to trace the history of "declinism," to philosophers from Frederick Neitzche to Martin Heidegger, and writers from Henry Adams to Robert Bly, his accusations often fall wide of the intended mark. His assaults on Jean Jacques Rousseau and W.E.B. DuBois will appear particularly unfair to those familiar with the works of these men, though readers who trust in Herman's abbreviated accounts of their thinking will be unknowingly misled. The "Great Ideas" framework Herman defends in the pages of this book ought to prize the close reading of important texts as much as it seeks to protect a sacrosanct canon or a static notion of prized ideals. Great ideas after all stand up to close attention. Herman's book conveys a confidence in the values of the Western tradition, but in making its argument, it inspires a casual disrespect from the works of other arguably great thinkers and artists based on Herman's swift survey--a dubious achievement and troublesome side effect of this challenging book.

From Library Journal

Herman, coordinator of the Western Civilization Program at the Smithsonian, argues, like Gress (above), that despite the West emerging triumphant from the Cold War, intellectuals continue to predict pessimistically the decline of the West as they have since the days of Nietzsche and Spengler. Modern society is always "materialistic, spiritually bankrupt, and devoid of human values. Modern people are always displaced, rootless, psychologically scarred, and isolated from one another." (LJ 2/15/97)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (January 8, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684827913
• ISBN-13: 978-0684827919
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent introduction to the philosophy of history., October 27, 1998

By 

P. S. Ruckman Jr. (IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Idea of Decline in Western History (Hardcover)

Herman provides an excellent introduction to the philosophy of history. The writing is exceptionally lucid for a topic so demanding. "Serious scholars" might not appreciate summary discussions of Spengler, Hegel, Toynbee, Chamberlain, Dubois, Garvey, Aquinas, and others, but the form of Herman's presentation suits his ultimate goal just fine. Furthermore, the willing reader will learn a great deal about classic works in the field AND be entertained. "The Idea of Decline" constantly challenges one to consider the value of clearly stated world views and, if readers share my experience, they will be encouraged to pursue further reading in the philosophy of history with vigor. In sum : A great, thought-provoking read.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary achievement, April 6, 2007

By 

Frank J. Tipler (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Idea of Decline in Western History (Hardcover)

I first encountered the idea of decline, in the 1970's as a graduate student in physics, through the work of my professor, the historian of science Stephen G. Brush. Professor Brush associated the idea of decline with the discovery of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In spite of my admiration for Brush (whose book, THE TEMPERATURE OF HISTORY, Herman does not mention), I think that Herman has done a better job in describing the history of the Idea of decline, which indeed arose long before the Second Law was discovered. Rather, I now believe -- in large part because of the evidence Herman has presented in this book -- that the Second Law was interpreted as a guarantee of ineviable decline BECAUSE the virus of the idea of decline was already infecting the Western mind. (The physicist Pierre Duhem pointed out in the late 19th century that the Second Law actually does not imply inevitable decline.) Herman has written what is probably the best defense of the Enlightenment ideals, namely progress through physicial science and rationality, that I have seen in many years. Herman describes at length the personal connections between the philosophers of decline, and I think this description is one of the book's greatest strengths. Herman emphasizes the remarkable fact that all the Decliners, Left and Right, were united by a deep hatred for both Newtonian mechanics and Christianity. On reflection, this common hatred is not surprising, since these are the foundation of modern human civilization which the Decliners also hate and aim to destroy, as documented by Herman at length in this book. An extraordinary achievement. I'm very pleased that there are still scholars like Herman. With men like Herman around, writing books like this, the Decliners may yet fail to destroy civilization.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prophets of doom, March 14, 2003

By 

John C. Landon "nemonemini" (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Idea of Decline in Western History (Hardcover)

The viewpoint of Spengler on the decline of the West is an insidious thesis whose continued popularity and beguiling appeal endures notwithstanding the severe flaws that emerge on closer examination. The same could be said for Toynbee's elaboration of the idea of the West's inevitable decline. Herman here joins the ranks of the critics and, despite a prickly bias in his viewpoint, makes a good case for the fallacy of the prophets of doom. And this via the history, e.g. such works as Nordau's Degeneration, of the constellation of ideas behind these first of the 'postmoderns'. In some ways the view of the classical liberal is an appropriate response to the cockeyed conservatism of Spengler, and here we have the correct suggestion the rise of the modern is a creative era in world history, and not the tail end of some Faustian civilization beginning in the year 1000 AD.
Still, the issue of decline won't go away, if only because nothing lasts forever. But the latter is not an historical thesis or theory, and it is false to say that decline is inevitable, let alone that some invigorating barbarism will renew our esthetics. So far from being an aberration the Enlightenment brought into being a new age of history, and to foresee decline, and this unconsciously willed as some perverse progress, bespeaks only the idiotic epigone of Nietzche. Herman makes this basic point in a fashion that might not sit well with the mystique of the Spenglerian horde. As for Toynbee, his mechanics of history simply cannot deal with the facts of the rise of the West or its significance in any intelligent way, as if the author stepped from some medieval monastery to be appalled at the end times in the birth of freedom. Let's hope we don't go down fighting against this tide of willed self-destruction which seems attractive to the enemies of the Enlightenment. A bit 'thinktankish', but a useful work.