The War Against the West

The War Against the West

"The War Against the West" is a 1938 book by Hungary-born scholar Aurel Kolnai. It is a critical study of National Socialist ideology. The title indicates the author's view of Nazism as profoundly anti-Western (by "the West" he meant the liberal, democratic, capitalist tendencies of countries such as England, France, and America).

The book was published by Victor Gollancz Ltd. (London) as a 711-page hardcover in 1938 with preface by Wickham Steed. The Left Book Club made it an "Additional Book" selection. It has not been in print since the late thirties, although it enjoyed a modest success at the time of publication.

Overview

During the twenties and thirties, Kolnai, born a Jew who converted to Catholicism under the influence of G.K. Chesterton, read extensively in the German language fascist and national socialist literature. The book compiles and critiques the anti-Enlightenment works of Nazi writers themselves. Kolnai's study was the first comprehensive survey in English of Nazi ideology as a counter-revolution against, what German thinkers saw as, the materialistic, rootless civilizations dominated by comfort-addicted, money-and-security-centered, liberal bourgeois and rootless cosmopolitan Jews; the antithesis of the heroic model of more vital civilizations, prepared to risk their lives, to die for ostensibly "higher" ideals. It is a devastating critique that argues that Nazi ideology is alien to the West and profoundly disturbing and dangerous.

Kolnai saw the war against the West as, in essence, a war of paganism against Christian civilization. In citations from Hitler, Goebbels, and others, Kolnai sought to expose what he saw as "the obsessive Nazi effort to replace Christianity with a crude and barbaric form of pagan religion, to twist the cross of Christ into a swastika."

Contents

External links

* [http://www.cceia.org/viewMedia.php/prmTemplateID/8/prmID/4465 Transcript of remarks] on the book "Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies" by Ian Buruma, on 8 April 2004, at the Carnegie Council Books for Breakfast.
* [http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=21315957377824 Kolnai's "Political Memoirs"] , reviewed by Lee Congdon of James Madison University. Discusses "The War Against the West"
* [http://encarta.msn.com/sidebar_461500290/1938_Literature_World.html 1938: Literature, World] from "Collier's Year Book".
* [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:PJEx_vbzkVkJ:www.nationarchive.com/Summaries/v147i0014_15.htm+Aurel+Kolnai+%22war+against+the+west%22&hl=en The Spirit of Nazism] , a review of "The War Against the West" by Hans Kohn, in "The Nation", Vol. 147, 1 October 1938.
* [http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:mFvfl_b1Ho8J:www.aodonline.org/aodonline-sqlimages/SHMS/Faculty/HittingerJohn/Articles/PoliticalConservatism.pdf+Aurel+Kolnai+%22war+against+the+west%22&hl=en Aurel Kolnai and the Metaphysics of Political Conservatism] by John P. Hittinger.


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