Books: Man or History?

Man or History? THE COMING CAESARS (384 pp.)— Amaury de Riencourt — Coward-McCann ($6).

In The Decline of the West Oswald Spengler announced with a certain gloomy satisfaction that "the Caesarism that is to succeed approaches with quiet, firm step." History was always goose-stepping its way through the centuries in Spengler's vision. Compared with his German mentor France's Amaury de Riencourt, 38, a freelance writer and lecturer who now lives in the U.S., is more amiable, less apocalyptic. Compared either with Spengler or other determinist philosophers of history— Toynbee, Pareto, Marx—Author de...