The Borkenau thesis and the origins of the west

Abstract

Franz Borkenau died in Vienna in 1957, at the comparatively early age of fifty-six. In 1981, Richard Lowenthal brought out a posthumous collection of his papers, mostly unpublished, which has recently been reissued in a paperback edition. There has been little fanfare surrounding this publication, although a contingent of admirers has been growing, almost an underground Borkenau cult. I am happy to include myself as one of them. This book is one of the great intellectual rediscoveries of our time.