Reconstructing Spengler's Prehistory

Spengler's Planned Articles

Strike while the iron is hot, they say! My drive to propagate Spengler’s ideas is at an all-time high so I thought I’d take a look at some of the articles he had planned for an academic journal—Die Welt als Geschichte.

In a 1934 letter to the journal’s lead editor, Spengler outlined his plans.

Spengler to Hans Erich Stier

Munich, June 6th, 1934

That is very good news! I hope that the journal will be started now without further difficulties… As regards my contributions, I have divided the whole period—the history of the second millennium B.C., under a number of special essays, one of which I hope to be able to deliver every month. The titles will be something as follows:

1. Tartessos and Alaschia

   (also trade, sea traffic, writing and speech in western Mediterranean).

2. The Achaeans

   (the contrast between pit and dome graves).

3. Kefti and Kreti

   (the Kreti belong to the layer of the Sea Peoples, the Kefti belong to the Minoan Culture).

4. The Ionians

   (the history of western Asia Minor and its connection with Crete).

5. The ‘Sons of Anak’ (Sea Peoples problem. ának = άναξ).

6. The Etruscans (early history of Italy in connection with Greece).

7. The War Chariot and its Significance in World-History.

8. Origin and formation of the classic ‘peoples’.

9. Armenians and Aramaeans.

10. The movements of peoples in inner Asia and inner Africa in the second millennium and their cause (Indo-Germanic problem).

You will be able to deduce some of the content from these titles. I have been thinking about these questions for ten years, and have gradually arrived at quite divergent results from those of contemporary research. As for the book by [Altheim], I had just read it. It is the most valuable work on Roman history since Munzer’s Adelsparteien and promises a history of Rome that can finally replace Mommsen’s. Unfortunately, [Eduard] Meyer never got there. However, Altman still has to free himself from the conventional understanding of the terms Etruscan and Italic, which Duhn in particular created. Etruscan is a loose term used by the later Romans for everything north of the Tiber river. Historically, it is a confusion of races, languages, and cultures, which first must be sorted out. Then, in part, there is a very close connection with simultaneous movements and locations in Greece, Carthage, and eastern Spain.

With best regards, your very honorable Oswald Spengler

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The results of Spengler’s plan were mixed. He only lived another two years after penning this letter. One can imagine how amazing his insights would have been had he lived another decade or so to finish this project. But perhaps, as Spengler suggests in that letter, we can deduce their content from the titles. So, for the foreseeable future, that is what I’ll be doing.

Some of these titles became fully-finished pieces that Spengler managed to publish in his lifetime. If you have a copy of the German Reden und Aufsätze (published posthumously by his niece), you will find some one hundred or more pages on the topic of Tartessos and Alaschia! Unfortunately, this has yet to be translated into English. There, we also find an introduction to these collection of planned essays, titled, “On World History of the Second Millennium Before Christ”. I am planning on translating it within the next few days so be tuned for that. But to give an adumbration, Spengler states that this second millennium B.C. was of decisive importance. As the powers of Egypt and Babylon waned, the center of gravity shifts “toward the colder, more intense and highly spiritually refined, harder struggling North”. A new form of human spirit washes across Eurasia. He is referring to the Indo-Europeanization of Eurasia and the establishment of new Cultures: Greco-Roman, Indian and Chinese.

Regarding the 10 essays themselves, only the aforementioned “Tartessos and Alaschia”, and his piece “The War Chariot and its Significance in World-History” were completed. Given the inordinate length of “Tartessos and Alaschia”, I do not have the time to translate it at the moment. But I will continue this series by giving an outline of its major ideas. Regarding the other pieces, we have enough information from Spengler’s notes on prehistory (published in English under the title Early Days of World History) to reconstruct what Spengler might have written had he not died in 1936. So, for next time, be on the lookout for a completed translation of “On World History of the Second Millennium Before Christ”. Following that, I will be going through the 10 planned essays one by one.

A photo of Spengler’s desk with a book on Ancient Altaic art monuments.