THE FUTURE OF THE WEST

In a presentation intended for the layman, the author presents and draws from the theories of civilization of Danilevsky, Spengler and Toynbee, adding his own positive argument to their relatively disheartening ones. The present phase of Western Civilization seems in all the cycles to be on the declining curve, but the author, extracting from the theories the common ingredient of defeat - the loss of creative productivity - fools that there is life and hope yet and that it is up to us to write our own now unpredictable history. He finds creative elements in American and European cultures and claims that in a total war the West would win because of its industrial potential, its superior air and sea power, and its spiritual assets of religion and freedom. More valuable in its analysis of other theories than in the rather hasty and to this reader superficial assertion of the West's position and destiny, a book readable and arousing, in which the author raises a small but positive voice in face of the rumbling warnings of the cyclical theorists.