Men Among the Ruins

Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist

De: Julius Evola

Narrado por: Robin Douglas

Julius Evola's masterful overview of the political and social manifestations of our time, the "age of decline" known to the Hindus as the Kali Yuga.

• Reveals the occult war that underlies the crises that have become a prevailing feature of modern life.

• Includes H. T. Hansen's definitive essay on Evola's political life and theory.

Men Among the Ruins is Evola's frontal assault on the predominant materialism of our time and the mirage of progress. For Evola and other proponents of Traditionalism, we are now living in an age of increasing strife and chaos: the Kali Yuga of the Hindus or the Germanic Ragnarok. In such a time, social decadence is so widespread that it appears as a natural component of all political institutions. Evola argues that the crises that dominate the daily lives of our societies are part of a secret occult war to remove the support of spiritual and traditional values in order to turn man into a passive instrument of the powerful.

Evola is often regarded as the godfather of contemporary Italian fascism and right-wing radical politics, but attentive examination of the historical record--as provided by H. T. Hanson's definitive introduction--reveals Evola to be a much more complex figure. Though he held extreme right-wing views, he was a fearless critic of the Fascist regime and preferred a caste system based on spirituality and intellect to the biological racism championed by the Nazis. Ultimately, he viewed the forces of history as comprised by two factions: "history's demolition squad" enslaved by blind faith in the future and those individuals whose watchword is Tradition. These latter stand in this world of ruins at a higher level and are capable of letting go of what needs to be abandoned in order that what is truly essential not be compromised.

Deffinetly worth a read/listen after Revolt Against the Modern World

A more practical dive into what can be done about the worlds decline at his time (1972).
Unfortunately, this work definitely feels far more dated than his magnum opus Revolt Against the Modern World, even though this book was released later and revised later. This is more than anything related to the fact that this time he actually tries to be practical and talks about current events and trends which of course now they are over half a century old even if we were to count from the revision date.

Especially the part where he talks about population, he seems to have not predicted and obviously almost nobody could have predicted that even the "lower races" would stop having kids one day. Only Africa and a part of MENA and Philippines remain with above replacement fertility, and for all of them its dropping fast.

Also the open genocidal rhetoric against the higher races (or in this case the higher race) from todays "leftists" and such seemingly wasnt noticed by him back then, suggesting this is more of a recent development. Another thing that he cannot be blamed for not being able to forsee.

There are quite a few other things where the date of this book is obvious, he even mentions black Americans as an example of Christians that have nothing to do with traditional Europe, thereby disqualifying Christianity as the unifying element for European descended peoples since its too universalist which is a very good point. But this point seems to be made in ignorance of the fact that Africa itself had at the time 7 times more black Christians that he doesn't mention at all, although black Americans are indeed a great example for what he wanted to show, taking Nigerians and Congolese black Christians as an example seems to have been at least worthy of an honorably mention, the absence of this indicates to me that he wasnt even that aware of this growing traditional Christian group, as black Africans today are in reality the majority of actual Christians.

He also still seems to have some hope in this book that the elites would try to come and save us, some monarchical lines coming to their senses and seizing control, needless to say this is hillarious and Qanon level cope in our current time (2026). As far as I am aware he didn't actually believe this near the end of his life especially around the time that the revision was published. But the original text was published like 20 years before the revision so it seems he left the original somewhat intact despite his new contradictory opinions, so it is indeed more dated than the revision date would have you believe.

it is also interesting to see that he advocated for a united Europe, a sort of fascist/national socialist Imperium, a complete fantasy pipe dream even for his time.

There is a lot more to say here since the work doesn't really have a point per se, it's just a collection of thoughts and observations about current events of his time so a lot of things are seperate.

All in all, this is a good book to read/listen to if you want to see where "the rubber hits the road" in regards to his ideology translating to the real world of his time.

I do recommend it but a heads up the actual book itself is only like 6 hours or 7 hours and most of this 16 hour+ audiobook is in fact just background information that another author adds about Julius Evolas life, which is somewhat interesting but clearly comes from some apologetic leftist/liberal slant but its not so overwhelming/bad.

The narrators voice was quite unappealing to me and high pitched but this is the only audiobook version so oh well, I listened at 2x speed and later when actual Evolas writings were being read at 1.5x speed because the narator was also a bit slow in his naration.