Note de lecture sur l'ouvrage d'Emmanuel Todd, Défaite de l'Occident, 2024

Overview & Synopsis

A title reminiscent of Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West (Der Untergang des Abendlandes), the two volumes of which caused a stir in 1918 and 1922, after the German defeat. "Der Untergang" could just as well have been translated as the "shipwreck", the "disappearance" of a West incapable of warding off the danger of Russian domination of Europe, or even of the world. Todd displays a certain caution in the two quotes he has placed at the top: first Raymond Aron, who warns against pretending to know the future, then Martin Luther, who almost apologizes for not being able to stop saying what he thinks. Despite this caution, the author produced a book that announces, like Spengler, Russia's victory and the observation of the "nihilism" and "suicide" of the United States. It is not a scientific study, but a pamphlet, sometimes quite spirited, in accordance with the genre, but rather long and unconvincing.