Review of Staring into Chaos by B.G. Brander
This book will be of interest to concerned and curious citizens alike. It's an exhaustive review of the three greatest minds to write comprehensively about man's history, researching meticulously how civilizations rise and fall, with a focus on the decline of the West. The author, B.G. Brander, is a generalist who shows his own great intellect in the subject matter, particularly his thorough evaluations of the major works of the three greatest historians of the 20th century, Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, and Pitirim A. Sorokin.
I first read this book right after 9-11. For many years before that event, though, I had a deep and abiding sense that things were going sideways in the world. While all around me people and the media were proclaiming the ever-advancing notions of our civilization, it seemed to me that something was wrong. Quite wrong. My interests then, and still do now, range widely across such fields of study as religion, science, technology, philosophy, economics, history, archeology, architecture, the fine arts (literature, music, painting), social relations, psychology, government, politics, warfare, and law and ethics. I read widely, looking for some answers to how civilization "might go" but could find no single book that provided the vast overview coupled with the in-depth information I was seeking. Until I found Staring into Chaos by B.G. Brander. From the summary and the few reviews I read at the time, it seemed spot on. I had never read (let alone heard of) the subjects of his book: Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin. (I picked up a used copy on Amazon just recently because I'd loaned my copy out to a friend, only to never see it again. I wanted to re-read the book, given the passage of 10 years.)
What a revelation.
The book is presented in four parts, and a lengthy epilogue. The notes and bibliography should satisfy most autodidacts.
In Part I, titled The Problem of the West, Brander introduces us to the notions of doubt seeded among all the progress that the West has enjoyed over the last 500 years. After World War II, in particular, he notes that "Perceptive observers saw civilization thinned to a mere veneer, with barbarism surging just beneath the surface, straining for release" (p. 15).
In subsection 3 of Part I, titled Visions of Decline, he provides specific background to the topic in the form of various social thinkers from the 19th century that sounded warning bells. Around this time he notes there were many writers who "disclaimed notions of continual upward progress, accepting instead that societies and civilizations undergo organic processes, with periods of youth, maturity, and old age, of expansion and decay" (p. 66).
Part I ends ominously when he writes that "an oddly apocalyptic atmosphere leaves the three works [the major works of Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin that Brander will cover] more pertinent than ever as the largest, most complete, and penetrating studies of an ailing culture and its sick society" (p. 84).
Parts II, III, and IV are devoted each to Brander's summary and analysis of the massive and monumental works of Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, and Pitirim A. Sorokin, respectively. No detail provided here can do justice to what Brander has done. He's basically summarized the three greatest achievements in historical documentation ever attempted by men. He does so in accessible language and division of thought. Each of the three main parts has its sections, and further subsections. Brander provides an introduction in each Part for each author he assesses. This provides a wonderful introduction not only to that author's work but also the times leading up to the production of that work. Each Part contains, to me, an exhaustive summary of original thought by the three writers.
I'll just provide a couple of the many quotations from the book that caught my eye: "The producers of an important sensate pleasure, musicians earned fame and riches as idols of half-hysterical audiences and fans" (p. 289). Is he writing about late 20th-century America? No. Fifth century BC Greece! Or this: "[E]laborate technique often takes the place of creative genius--a trait, Sorokin noted, that signals decadence in any field" (p. 294). Just step into any modern art gallery to view what's being pushed as "art" in the past 10 years, and you'll agree.
Brander concludes his book with a lengthy epilogue, titled Civilization and the Future. In it he provides a summary of thought that encompasses even more writers on the decline of civilizations and a deeper analysis of the three great writers from Parts II to IV. A reviewer here has noted that Brander does not provide specifics, or lessons learned, for living through a declining civilization. This reviewer must have skipped this epilogue entirely! In it Brander provides exactly that: guidance from the three master historians. (And no, I'm not going to give it away!)
On my first read many years ago, the book altered the way I viewed the world and man's place in it. It was an extremely satisfying read. It did not necessarily "change" my view of the future of the West, though, because I already sensed it was in decline. What Brander's book did was confirm for me what I was seeing around me, and it provided a wealth of thought and study. As I read through this book a second time it suddenly occurred to me how short-lived and short-sighted humanity is:
The arc of history does not bend toward justice. The arc of history bends toward the recycling of civilizations.
I first read this book right after 9-11. For many years before that event, though, I had a deep and abiding sense that things were going sideways in the world. While all around me people and the media were proclaiming the ever-advancing notions of our civilization, it seemed to me that something was wrong. Quite wrong. My interests then, and still do now, range widely across such fields of study as religion, science, technology, philosophy, economics, history, archeology, architecture, the fine arts (literature, music, painting), social relations, psychology, government, politics, warfare, and law and ethics. I read widely, looking for some answers to how civilization "might go" but could find no single book that provided the vast overview coupled with the in-depth information I was seeking. Until I found Staring into Chaos by B.G. Brander. From the summary and the few reviews I read at the time, it seemed spot on. I had never read (let alone heard of) the subjects of his book: Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin. (I picked up a used copy on Amazon just recently because I'd loaned my copy out to a friend, only to never see it again. I wanted to re-read the book, given the passage of 10 years.)
What a revelation.
The book is presented in four parts, and a lengthy epilogue. The notes and bibliography should satisfy most autodidacts.
In Part I, titled The Problem of the West, Brander introduces us to the notions of doubt seeded among all the progress that the West has enjoyed over the last 500 years. After World War II, in particular, he notes that "Perceptive observers saw civilization thinned to a mere veneer, with barbarism surging just beneath the surface, straining for release" (p. 15).
In subsection 3 of Part I, titled Visions of Decline, he provides specific background to the topic in the form of various social thinkers from the 19th century that sounded warning bells. Around this time he notes there were many writers who "disclaimed notions of continual upward progress, accepting instead that societies and civilizations undergo organic processes, with periods of youth, maturity, and old age, of expansion and decay" (p. 66).
Part I ends ominously when he writes that "an oddly apocalyptic atmosphere leaves the three works [the major works of Spengler, Toynbee, and Sorokin that Brander will cover] more pertinent than ever as the largest, most complete, and penetrating studies of an ailing culture and its sick society" (p. 84).
Parts II, III, and IV are devoted each to Brander's summary and analysis of the massive and monumental works of Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, and Pitirim A. Sorokin, respectively. No detail provided here can do justice to what Brander has done. He's basically summarized the three greatest achievements in historical documentation ever attempted by men. He does so in accessible language and division of thought. Each of the three main parts has its sections, and further subsections. Brander provides an introduction in each Part for each author he assesses. This provides a wonderful introduction not only to that author's work but also the times leading up to the production of that work. Each Part contains, to me, an exhaustive summary of original thought by the three writers.
I'll just provide a couple of the many quotations from the book that caught my eye: "The producers of an important sensate pleasure, musicians earned fame and riches as idols of half-hysterical audiences and fans" (p. 289). Is he writing about late 20th-century America? No. Fifth century BC Greece! Or this: "[E]laborate technique often takes the place of creative genius--a trait, Sorokin noted, that signals decadence in any field" (p. 294). Just step into any modern art gallery to view what's being pushed as "art" in the past 10 years, and you'll agree.
Brander concludes his book with a lengthy epilogue, titled Civilization and the Future. In it he provides a summary of thought that encompasses even more writers on the decline of civilizations and a deeper analysis of the three great writers from Parts II to IV. A reviewer here has noted that Brander does not provide specifics, or lessons learned, for living through a declining civilization. This reviewer must have skipped this epilogue entirely! In it Brander provides exactly that: guidance from the three master historians. (And no, I'm not going to give it away!)
On my first read many years ago, the book altered the way I viewed the world and man's place in it. It was an extremely satisfying read. It did not necessarily "change" my view of the future of the West, though, because I already sensed it was in decline. What Brander's book did was confirm for me what I was seeing around me, and it provided a wealth of thought and study. As I read through this book a second time it suddenly occurred to me how short-lived and short-sighted humanity is:
The arc of history does not bend toward justice. The arc of history bends toward the recycling of civilizations.
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