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The Western Question in Greece and Turkey
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420 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2012
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About the author
Arnold J. Toynbee
691 books520 followersNot the same as Arnold Toynbee, economist and nephew of Arnold Joseph Toynbee
British educator Arnold Joseph Toynbee noted cyclical patterns in the growth and decline of civilizations for his 12-volume Study of History (1934-1961).
He went to Winchester college and Balliol college, Oxford.
During both world wars, he worked for the foreign office. He additionally published Nationality and the War (1915), The Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation (1915), The German Terror in France: An Historical Record (1917), and Turkey, a Past and a Future (1917). He attended the peace conference of Paris in 1919 as a delegate.
From 1919 to 1924, Arnold J. Toynbee served as professor of modern Greek and Byzantine at King's college, London. From 1925, Oxford University Press published The Survey of International Affairs under the auspices of the royal institute of international affairs, and Toynbee, professor, oversaw the publication. From 1925, Toynbee served as research professor and director at the royal institute of international affairs. He published The Conduct of British Empire Foreign Relations since the Peace Settlement (1928).
His first marriage to Rosalind Murray produced three sons and ended in divorce in 1946. Toynbee, professor, then married Veronica M. Boulter, his research assistant. He published Civilization on Trial (1948).
Toynbee served as research professor and director at the royal institute of international affairs until 1955.
People published best known lectures of Toynbee, professor, in memory of Adam Gifford as An Historian's Approach to Religion (1956). His massive work examined development and decay. He presented the rise and fall rather than nation-states or ethnic groups. According to his analysis, the welfare depends on ability to deal successfully with challenges.
He also published Democracy in the Atomic Age (1957), Christianity among the Religions of the World (1958), and Between Niger and Nile (1965).
He died in York, North Yorkshire, England.
British educator Arnold Joseph Toynbee noted cyclical patterns in the growth and decline of civilizations for his 12-volume Study of History (1934-1961).
He went to Winchester college and Balliol college, Oxford.
During both world wars, he worked for the foreign office. He additionally published Nationality and the War (1915), The Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation (1915), The German Terror in France: An Historical Record (1917), and Turkey, a Past and a Future (1917). He attended the peace conference of Paris in 1919 as a delegate.
From 1919 to 1924, Arnold J. Toynbee served as professor of modern Greek and Byzantine at King's college, London. From 1925, Oxford University Press published The Survey of International Affairs under the auspices of the royal institute of international affairs, and Toynbee, professor, oversaw the publication. From 1925, Toynbee served as research professor and director at the royal institute of international affairs. He published The Conduct of British Empire Foreign Relations since the Peace Settlement (1928).
His first marriage to Rosalind Murray produced three sons and ended in divorce in 1946. Toynbee, professor, then married Veronica M. Boulter, his research assistant. He published Civilization on Trial (1948).
Toynbee served as research professor and director at the royal institute of international affairs until 1955.
People published best known lectures of Toynbee, professor, in memory of Adam Gifford as An Historian's Approach to Religion (1956). His massive work examined development and decay. He presented the rise and fall rather than nation-states or ethnic groups. According to his analysis, the welfare depends on ability to deal successfully with challenges.
He also published Democracy in the Atomic Age (1957), Christianity among the Religions of the World (1958), and Between Niger and Nile (1965).
He died in York, North Yorkshire, England.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 14, 2019
3,5 stars. A controversial, challenging but very interesting book.
For the Greeks:
Ο Toynbee ήταν κάτοχος της έδρας Κοραή, καθηγητής Νεότερης Ελληνικής και Βυζαντινής ιστορίας, γλώσσας και λογοτεχνίας στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Λονδίνου (King's College). Η έκδοση του βιβλίου προκάλεσε αντιδράσεις κατά του Toynbee που αναγκάστηκε να παραιτηθεί. Κατηγορήθηκε ως "ανθέλληνας " και "τουρκόφιλος".
Ο ίδιος υποστηρίζει ότι υπήρξε αντικειμενικός. Ως Ελληνίδα βρήκα πολλές περιγραφές και απόψεις του πολύ ενοχλητικές. Αλλά αν ο Toynbee ήταν όντως αντικειμενικός, πολύ φοβάμαι ότι θα πρέπει κι εμείς οι Έλληνες να κάνουμε αυτό που απαιτούμε να κάνουν οι Τούρκοι. Να μάθουμε και να εξοικειωθούμε με την αληθινή ιστορία μας.
(Το βιβλίο υπάρχει και σε ελληνική μετάφραση από τις εκδόσεις University Studio Press. )
For the Greeks:
Ο Toynbee ήταν κάτοχος της έδρας Κοραή, καθηγητής Νεότερης Ελληνικής και Βυζαντινής ιστορίας, γλώσσας και λογοτεχνίας στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Λονδίνου (King's College). Η έκδοση του βιβλίου προκάλεσε αντιδράσεις κατά του Toynbee που αναγκάστηκε να παραιτηθεί. Κατηγορήθηκε ως "ανθέλληνας " και "τουρκόφιλος".
Ο ίδιος υποστηρίζει ότι υπήρξε αντικειμενικός. Ως Ελληνίδα βρήκα πολλές περιγραφές και απόψεις του πολύ ενοχλητικές. Αλλά αν ο Toynbee ήταν όντως αντικειμενικός, πολύ φοβάμαι ότι θα πρέπει κι εμείς οι Έλληνες να κάνουμε αυτό που απαιτούμε να κάνουν οι Τούρκοι. Να μάθουμε και να εξοικειωθούμε με την αληθινή ιστορία μας.
(Το βιβλίο υπάρχει και σε ελληνική μετάφραση από τις εκδόσεις University Studio Press. )
December 24, 2025
A very thoughtful, balanced, well-written, and extremely insightful overview of the Greco-Turkish War and its much wider context written by a talented and curious firsthand observer. There are too many excellent quotes to mention, but this is one that hammers home his powers of empathy, insight, and understanding:
"We have injured the Turks most by making them hopeless and embittered. Our scepticism has been so profound and our contempt so vehement, that they have almost ceased to regard it as possible to modify them by their own action. They incline to accept these Western attitudes as fixed stars in their horoscope, with a fatalism which we incorrectly attribute to the teaching of their religion, without realising that our own conduct has been one of its potent causes. But while they are discouraged, they are not deadened to resentment. They see us in a light in which we too seldom look at ourselves, as hypocrites who make self-righteous professions a cloak for unscrupulous practice; and their master-grievance against us so fills their minds that it leaves little room for self-examination. If a charge is brought against them from a Western source, that is almost enough in itself to make them harden their hearts against it, however just it may be. They do not get so far as to consider it on its merits. They plead ‘not guilty,’ and put themselves in a posture of defence, to meet what experience has led them to regard as one of the most effective strokes in the Western tactic of aggression. In 1921, I seldom found the Turks defend the fearful atrocities which they had committed six years previously against the Armenians, but repentance and shame for them were not uppermost in their minds—not, I believe, because they were incapable of these feelings, but because they were preoccupied by indignation at the conduct of the Allied Powers in fomenting a war-after-the-war in Anatolia. Remorse cannot easily co-exist with a grievance, and until we relieve the Turks of the one, we shall certainly fail, as we have done hitherto, to inspire them with the other."
"We have injured the Turks most by making them hopeless and embittered. Our scepticism has been so profound and our contempt so vehement, that they have almost ceased to regard it as possible to modify them by their own action. They incline to accept these Western attitudes as fixed stars in their horoscope, with a fatalism which we incorrectly attribute to the teaching of their religion, without realising that our own conduct has been one of its potent causes. But while they are discouraged, they are not deadened to resentment. They see us in a light in which we too seldom look at ourselves, as hypocrites who make self-righteous professions a cloak for unscrupulous practice; and their master-grievance against us so fills their minds that it leaves little room for self-examination. If a charge is brought against them from a Western source, that is almost enough in itself to make them harden their hearts against it, however just it may be. They do not get so far as to consider it on its merits. They plead ‘not guilty,’ and put themselves in a posture of defence, to meet what experience has led them to regard as one of the most effective strokes in the Western tactic of aggression. In 1921, I seldom found the Turks defend the fearful atrocities which they had committed six years previously against the Armenians, but repentance and shame for them were not uppermost in their minds—not, I believe, because they were incapable of these feelings, but because they were preoccupied by indignation at the conduct of the Allied Powers in fomenting a war-after-the-war in Anatolia. Remorse cannot easily co-exist with a grievance, and until we relieve the Turks of the one, we shall certainly fail, as we have done hitherto, to inspire them with the other."
September 20, 2022
Some background is probably necessary. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WWI the Western Powers England and France involved themselves in reshaping the Middle East. In Anatolia that meant helping the Greek government to try to seize parts of Anatolia for itself, expelling the Turkish population. This led to a ferocious war and atrocities all round and the birth of the Turkish nation. Toynbee was present as a war correspondent and the book documents the war.
He is better known for his theory of history which posits civilizations as the fundamental unit of human society. The events in Anatolia allow him to discuss the relations of three civilizations, the Western which needs no introduction, the Near Eastern comprising Greece, the Balkans and the Russian/Bolshevik empire, the Middle East reaching to India.
Reading it one hundred years after its writing it feels weirdly contemporary, many paragraphs could be brought up to date simply by changing the names of the countries.
His concern is the problem of how these civilizations can live together, a problem still one hundred years later..
Masterfully written and well thought out.
He is better known for his theory of history which posits civilizations as the fundamental unit of human society. The events in Anatolia allow him to discuss the relations of three civilizations, the Western which needs no introduction, the Near Eastern comprising Greece, the Balkans and the Russian/Bolshevik empire, the Middle East reaching to India.
Reading it one hundred years after its writing it feels weirdly contemporary, many paragraphs could be brought up to date simply by changing the names of the countries.
His concern is the problem of how these civilizations can live together, a problem still one hundred years later..
Masterfully written and well thought out.
June 14, 2021
Page 404
"In regard to Mustafa Kemal
Pasha I have therefore only to say that he is not a Jew; not a member of that
group of politicians who controlled the Committee of Union and Progress, and
through it the Ottoman Empire, for half-a-dozen years between the coup d’état in
January 1913 and the armistice of October 1918; and not under suspicion of
making money or other personal gain out of his present position."
in Turkish
"Mustafa Kemal Paşa konusunda ancak şunları söyleyebilirim: Yahudi değildir; Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nu 1913 ocak ayındaki darbeden 1918 ekimindeki mütarekeye kadar yöneten İttihat ve Terakki komitesine dahil değildir ve üzerinde, şu andaki mevkii dolayısıyla servet ya da başka bir şahsi kazanç sağladığı yönünde hiçbir kuşku bulunmamaktadır."
"In regard to Mustafa Kemal
Pasha I have therefore only to say that he is not a Jew; not a member of that
group of politicians who controlled the Committee of Union and Progress, and
through it the Ottoman Empire, for half-a-dozen years between the coup d’état in
January 1913 and the armistice of October 1918; and not under suspicion of
making money or other personal gain out of his present position."
in Turkish
"Mustafa Kemal Paşa konusunda ancak şunları söyleyebilirim: Yahudi değildir; Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nu 1913 ocak ayındaki darbeden 1918 ekimindeki mütarekeye kadar yöneten İttihat ve Terakki komitesine dahil değildir ve üzerinde, şu andaki mevkii dolayısıyla servet ya da başka bir şahsi kazanç sağladığı yönünde hiçbir kuşku bulunmamaktadır."
November 4, 2020
因为内容和结构的散漫，以及译者颇有问题的中文水准，这本书并不特别好读。但汤因比那种超然的视野和智慧，还是在全书中时有闪现。他意识到，源于西欧的民族主义，因其发源地拥有稳定的语言疆界和历史传承，因而具备了现代民族国家的情感基础。但这样的舶来品一旦来到了布满了语言、宗教和历史断层的近东，便造成了巨大的问题。因为此处“连续性已经中断，过去提供的不是基础，而是悲惨的毁灭……这片土地上充斥着……中世纪残余和古典遗迹……正是这些石头呼吁任何足够愚蠢的人来倾听。”而欧洲列强也因错误的历史和错误的情感，产生了思想的偏见。最终这种无意识和权力的致命联合，既给近东人民带去了可怕的灾难，也使列强自身背上了沉重的道德负担。
October 10, 2022
the best analysis on the greco-turkish war and the tragic events of the campaign in Asia Minor. A real gem.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews