Books

May we say, in passing, that it seems Mr. John Chamberlain of The Times was a bit too severe on “L’Affair Jones” in saying of it that it was good only for forty pages. Mr. Chamberlain, it appears, was attempting to counteract the rather extreme praise which has been lavished upon “L’Affair Jones”. The least that one can say for it is that it is good for many more than forty pages. H. S.

SPENGLER’S FORTHCOMING WORK

Oswald Spengler, famous philosopher-historian, author of “The Decline of the West”, has written a new book entitled “The Hour of Decision”, which has already sold 200,000 copies in Germany in spite of the fact that it has been the subject of vitriolic attack by all Nazi literary and historical crities and that it has just been banned from review over the German radio systems.

“The Hour of Decision”, which Alfred A. Knopf announces for publication in the United States in February, is Spengler’s application to present day political and social problems of his well-known thesis that Western culture is in decline. Although Spengler, like the Nazis, is anti-democratic, anti-Parliamentarian, and anti-Marxist, he is not anti-Semitic and he is opposed to Hitler’s present policy in regard to the working classes. In this book he argues for a purely aristocratic society and against all forms of contemporary social legislation such as the Nazis are now proposing.

Professor Baumler, leading Nazi scholar, has denounced the book as “un-German, individualistic and merely aesthetic.” Although Spengler professes to stand for the high ideals of Prussianism, Professor Baumler maintains that Spengler does not understand the real meaning of Prussianism.