Becoming a Cultural Pessimist: Johan Huizinga’s In the Shadow of Tomorrow and The Decline of the West

Abstract

This paper explores Johan Huizinga’s cultural pessimism and the developments in his thought during the 1930’s. It will contextualize the evolution of his methodology in relation to perhaps the most exemplary cultural pessimist of modernity, Oswald Spengler. This paper traces the evolution of Huizinga’s thought, from his initial refutation of Spengler’s ‘romantical and metaphysical’ outlook on world history in a book review, to his eventual assimilation of similar methods and ideas.