Oswald Spengler, one of the most controversial historians of this century, was born in Blankenburg, Germany in 1880 and died in Munich in 1936. H. Stuart Hughes is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of California at San Diego. He is the author of many books, including Oswald Spengler: A Critical Estimate, Consciousness and Society and, most recently, Sophisticated Rebels.