End and Beginning: On the Generations of Cultures and the Origins of the West

Preface, vii
Editor’s Introduction, 1

Part I. Culture Cycles and Culture Generations, 31
1. Thinking Beyond Spengler, 33
2. Toynbee and the Culture Cycle, 47
3. The Antinomy of Death and the Culture Generations, 64
4. From Minoan to Greek Mythology, 96
5. The Philosophical Background: Beyond Space and Time, 121

Part II. Contributions to the Origin of the West, 131
• Linguistic Prelude
1. The Rise of the I-Form of Speech, 133
• Germanic Mythology—a Mirror of Cultural Change
2. The Mythical Starting Point [fragment], 202
3. Historic Layers in the Siegfried Saga, 215
4. The Archetypes in the Siegfried Myth, 238
5. The Gods of the Ancient Germans, 255
• The Emergence of Western Christianity
6. Pelagius, the Irish and the African Church, 289
7. The Beginnings of Western Monasticism [fragment], 328
8. Boniface and the Anglo-Irish Impact on the Frankish Churches, 357
9. Rome’s Break with Byzantium as Shown in Christian Painting, 365
• Confluence: End and Beginning
10. Primal Crime and “Social Paranoia” in the Dark Ages, 381
11. Stages on the Road to Western Civilization, 392
12. Postscriptum: The Chanson de Roland, 417

Part III. Reflections on Present and Future, 435
1. After the Atom: Life out of Death or Life in Death? [1947], 437
2. Will Technology Destroy Civilization? [1951], 449
3. Toynbee and the Future of the Jews [1955], 460

Appendix I: The Sources and Their Handling, 471
Appendix II: Books by Franz Borkenau, 475
Index, 477