Oswald Spengler und der Streitwagen: ein Plädoyer für Universalgeschichte
Oswald Spengler and the chariot: a plea for universal history

Summary/Abstract: Oswald Spengler (1880-1936) was one of the most influential philosophers of history between WW I and WW II. His book “The Decline of the West” (1918) made him famous. In this book Spengler attested that the phase of the West as a productive culture is over and that the phase of civilization has started. In the years after the publication of his main work Spengler started to get more and more interested in Ancient History in its broadest sense. He argued against a Eurocentric view of history and suggested to reconsider our common understanding of history and its epochs. In the last part of the paper I try to show how Spengler conceptualized his universal history by the example of a lecture given by him on the war chariot and its influence on world history.

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