Von Platon Bis Fukuyama

An important historical concept in many western schools of thought is the idea that political or cultural units can behave in a way that is analogous to the life cycle of bodies, experiencing biological stages such as birth, grown, maturity, old age, and death or rebirth. That concept still shapes our understanding today of the significant stages of any civilization. This volume includes a broad methodological introduction to this idea, along with selected contributions on the cyclical and biological concepts of history in the works of such varied thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, Sallust, Vergil, Livy, Seneca, Orosius, Simplius, Proclus, Joachim von Fiore, Machiavelli, Vico, Kant, Hegel, Spengler, Thomas Mann, Toynbee, Huntington, and Fukuyama.