Revolt Against the Modern World: Politics, Religion, and Social Order in the Kali Yuga

Evola's Central Work

Revolt Against the Modern World, first published in Italian in 1934, is Julius Evola's attempt to write a complete Traditionalist history of civilization. His thesis is stark: the modern world represents a total inversion of the sacred, hierarchical order that governed traditional societies. Democracy, egalitarianism, materialism, individualism: these are not progress but symptoms of a long decline that Evola, borrowing from Hindu cosmology, identifies with the Kali Yuga, the Dark Age.

Structure of the Book

The first half examines the principles of traditional civilization: divine kingship, caste, the warrior and priestly functions, initiation, sacred law, and the metaphysics of sex and race. Evola draws on Hindu, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, and medieval Christian sources to reconstruct what he considers the universal structure of all authentic civilizations. The second half traces the decline: the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the triumph of the "fourth estate" in modern democracy and socialism.

If You Read One Evola

Most readers of the Traditionalist school say that if you are going to read one Evola, this should be it. The book is ambitious, erudite, and uncompromising. Evola demands that the reader either accept his metaphysical premises or reject them entirely. There is no middle ground. The Joscelyn Godwin translation, published by Inner Traditions, is the standard English edition and reads well.

About This Edition

Author: Julius Evola (translated by Joscelyn Godwin)
Publisher: Inner Traditions International
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780892815067