Revolt Against the Modern World By Julius Evola Original Italian Edition 1934 Revised 1951, 1970 Inner Traditions International 1995 (Translation by Guido Stucco) 375 Pages, $29.95 ISBN 0-89281-506-X

Summary & Notes on the Author Traditional Spirituality State, Kingship, Empire Castes and Traditional Economics Traditional Time and Space Historical Decay A Mythological World History Degenerate Religions The Decline of Antiquity Church versus Empire The Post-Medieval Collapse The End of this World A Critique and Anathema

Historical Decay History runs from the ideal to the contingent in four ages, corresponding to the four castes. To use the Sanskrit terms, the ages are the Satya (Krta) Yuga, Trita Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and the Kali Yuga, or Dark Age. Evola notes the relationship of this model to the vision of Daniel and to the “Suns” of Mesoamerica, but he is most interested in Hesiod's metallic ages: gold, silver, bronze, and iron. In the last case, a fifth, penultimate age, the Age of Heroes, represents a partial restoration of the primordial condition just before the beginning of the Dark Age, or Iron Age. Race is an element in this pattern, but race did not have the significance for Evola that it did for the Nazis. For Evola, “Aryan” means roughly “heroic,” with only an unstable relationship to any physical type. It is a “race of the spirit,” characterized by the tendency toward inner liberation and spiritual reintegration in an active and combative form. Heroes, in this sense, have often swept away or absorbed decadent, “feminized” societies. Civilizations often fall before invigorating barbarians. The ultimate cause of decline is supernatural: “At the origin of every civilization there lies a 'divine' event…no human factor can account for it. The adulteration and decline of civilizations [are] caused by an event of the same order…when a race has lost contact…with the world of Being…then the collective organisms that a race has generated…are destined to descend into the world of contingency.” The inferior strains spread because of the lack of truly virile men, who would be able to pass on their spiritual as well as their bodies' lineage. This lack of virile men, rather than excessive ambition among women, is to blame for feminism. Merely phallic men are the slaves of chthonic forces. Physical eugenics could produce nothing better than beautiful animals. Though fascist countries were notoriously pro-natalist, Evola insisted that underpopulation is not a problem. Rather, the danger is the proliferation of inferior races and castes, whose growth is like cancer. Next . . . . . . . .

The sections of this review may be read sequentially. Please note that the sections do not correspond to the divisions of the book.

Copyright © 2002 by John J. Reilly