The decline of empires of the West

[lethargic_man]

I was watching a documentary about ten years ago, in which the presenter asserted that the British in the nineteenth century knew very well that no empire has lasted more than a few centuries, and that their turn would come too. I thought to myself "what's your source for this? I have seen no evidence for it anywhere."

This week the calendar aviva_m got me for Chanukah has a quotation from Oswald Spengler, whom I'd not heard of before. (I looked him up because I couldn't tell from his name whether he was German [ɔsvalt ʃpɛŋlər] or American [ɒzwəld spɛŋglər] as I would say it), and the above-linked page gave the impression the idea that western civilisation was due to decline arose with him, in the early twentieth century. (Can anyone add to this?)

On reflection, I can now see this has exerted a profound influence upon modern views of western, particular American, society; it's an idea whose time has come. (Though it's probably old hat to the Chinese, with their long-entrenched view of the cyclical progression of imperial dynasties.)