Spengler offered another division - three distinct phases: Magian (societies dominated by monotheism - Persian as well as Semitic religions), Apollonian (ancient Greece and Rome) and Faustian (the ‘modern Western societies’ of his time). The major cultures he identifies are Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, Mesoamerican (Mayan-Aztec), classical (Greek/Roman), Arabian and Western (European and American). Of particular interest to him were the characteristics of the separate and distinct cultures (established through developments in science, mathematics and the arts). First and foremost, his intention was to offer a world overview and on that basis to present and discuss the premise that the story of the history of man followed a fundamental pattern wherever on the globe it arose. His primary view was to reject the established Eurocentric paradigm (ancient/classical, Medieval - and, following the Renaissance - modern) and to take a totally new perspective. It was a huge undertaking by Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), formerly an unpublished historian and philosopher who set out to radically reconsider history - the rise and fall of world civilisations and their cultures. The Decline of the West - Volume 1 published in 1917, Volume 2 in 1922 - has exercised and challenged opinion ever since.
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