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A Study of History
Mr. Toynbee's analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations has been acknowledged as an achievement without parallel in modern scholarship. In its way, Mr. Somervell's abridgement of this monumental work is also an unparalleled achievement, for while reducing the work to on - sixth of its original size, he has, preserved its method, atmosphere, texture, and, for the most part, the author's very words. Indeed, through this miracle of condensation, he has provided a concise version that is no mere summary but the very essence of Mr. Toynbee's work.
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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 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 18, 2013
Well I used to have a giant hardback abridgement of this. I remember how it used to near cripple me every time I moved my books around or moved house. You almost needed two guys just to lift this one volume. Or two strong women, of course. Or nine freakishly strong children. I used to read it in bed, and that's why I walk with a limp to this day. Anyway, this guy Toynbee, man alive he never stopped writing, have you seen how many books he wrote? This particular elephantine work is one of those grandiose Spenglerian surveys of absolutely everything, and he has a Theory. Wikipedia, in a rare burst of fun, describes A Study of History thus -
Of the 26 civilizations Toynbee identified, sixteen were dead by 1940 and nine of the remaining ten were shown to have already broken down. Only western civilization was left standing. He explained breakdowns as a failure of creative power in the creative minority, which henceforth becomes a merely 'dominant' minority; that is followed by an answering withdrawal of allegiance and mimesis on the part of the majority; finally there is a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole. Toynbee explained decline as due to their moral failure. Many readers, especially in America, rejoiced in his implication (in vols. 1-6) that only a return to some form of Catholicism could halt the breakdown of western civilization which began with the Reformation.
Since he wrote this corpulent classic between 1934 and 1956 but he survived another 20 years, I wonder if he would have been wagging his old head over the evident connections that so many people miss. You may begin with what you feel is a justifiable and harmless Reformation but you do not realise that you are now on a slippery slope which leads straight to boys wearing long hair, girls riding motorcycles, and LSD being put into the water supply.
Toynbee describes the rise and fall of civilisations not as some kind of mystical-natural organisms like Spengler, but like organisations that adapt or die. Those are the important things, nations and ethnicities are just the wallpaper in the rooms. He judges on results - "the Sumerians exploited the intractable swamps of southern Iraq by organizing the Neolithic inhabitants into a society capable of carrying out large-scale irrigation projects" - I wonder if he lived just long enough to call Pol Pot a neo-Sumerian.
Historians mostly sneered at all this overarching giantism but allegedly the public lapped it up – they must have been made of sterner stuff, but it was in the days before junk food had made people’s limbs go all floppy, so they had the physical strength to stagger home with it from the bookshop. Historians these days don’t do this Toynbee Spengler My Great Big Theory of God the Universe and Everything, instead they write about the Guild of Oat-Cake Re-Grinders in Lehrenbreinheimgavau, Upper Munster, 1341 to 1374 and suchlike.
As you know, I think that history will teach us nothing and I firmly reject any supposed link between Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and Johnny Rotten’s Anarchy in the UK. The sex Pistols would have happened anyway, even if the Sumerians had still been in charge.
Of the 26 civilizations Toynbee identified, sixteen were dead by 1940 and nine of the remaining ten were shown to have already broken down. Only western civilization was left standing. He explained breakdowns as a failure of creative power in the creative minority, which henceforth becomes a merely 'dominant' minority; that is followed by an answering withdrawal of allegiance and mimesis on the part of the majority; finally there is a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole. Toynbee explained decline as due to their moral failure. Many readers, especially in America, rejoiced in his implication (in vols. 1-6) that only a return to some form of Catholicism could halt the breakdown of western civilization which began with the Reformation.
Since he wrote this corpulent classic between 1934 and 1956 but he survived another 20 years, I wonder if he would have been wagging his old head over the evident connections that so many people miss. You may begin with what you feel is a justifiable and harmless Reformation but you do not realise that you are now on a slippery slope which leads straight to boys wearing long hair, girls riding motorcycles, and LSD being put into the water supply.
Toynbee describes the rise and fall of civilisations not as some kind of mystical-natural organisms like Spengler, but like organisations that adapt or die. Those are the important things, nations and ethnicities are just the wallpaper in the rooms. He judges on results - "the Sumerians exploited the intractable swamps of southern Iraq by organizing the Neolithic inhabitants into a society capable of carrying out large-scale irrigation projects" - I wonder if he lived just long enough to call Pol Pot a neo-Sumerian.
Historians mostly sneered at all this overarching giantism but allegedly the public lapped it up – they must have been made of sterner stuff, but it was in the days before junk food had made people’s limbs go all floppy, so they had the physical strength to stagger home with it from the bookshop. Historians these days don’t do this Toynbee Spengler My Great Big Theory of God the Universe and Everything, instead they write about the Guild of Oat-Cake Re-Grinders in Lehrenbreinheimgavau, Upper Munster, 1341 to 1374 and suchlike.
As you know, I think that history will teach us nothing and I firmly reject any supposed link between Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and Johnny Rotten’s Anarchy in the UK. The sex Pistols would have happened anyway, even if the Sumerians had still been in charge.
July 28, 2012
هذه الدراسة التعريفية الموجزة المنشورة بأحد أعداد مجلة «تراث الإنسانية» العظيمة في ستينيات القرن الماضي، كانت أول ما قرأت عن كتاب المؤرخ الكبير أرنولد توينبي. وبعد قراءتها قررت الحصول على المجلدات الأربعة لـ «مختصر دراسة التاريخ» من ترجمة كاتب الدراسة فؤاد محمد شبل، ومراجعة المؤرخين الكبيرين محمد شفيق غربال وأحمد عزت عبد الكريم.
مجلة تراث الإنسانية هذه لعبت دورا مهما وبارزا في تعريف القراء بكلاسيكيات الأعمال في الأدب والتاريخ والفلسفة والفكر الإنساني عموما.. وأسدت خدمات ثقافية لا تقدر لجمهور القراء والمثقفين عموما.. رحم الله تلك الأيام!
مجلة تراث الإنسانية هذه لعبت دورا مهما وبارزا في تعريف القراء بكلاسيكيات الأعمال في الأدب والتاريخ والفلسفة والفكر الإنساني عموما.. وأسدت خدمات ثقافية لا تقدر لجمهور القراء والمثقفين عموما.. رحم الله تلك الأيام!
May 23, 2019
كتاب مختصر لشرح فلسفة توينبي، سهل الإسلوب، موجز العبارات، محدد العناوين
يمكن للقارئ أن يبدأ بقراءة هذا الكتاب ليعرف المسار العام لفلسفة التاريخ عند توينبي، ثم عليه أن يستكمل هذه المعرفة بقراءة مصادر توينبي نفسه بعد ذلك
يمكن للقارئ أن يبدأ بقراءة هذا الكتاب ليعرف المسار العام لفلسفة التاريخ عند توينبي، ثم عليه أن يستكمل هذه المعرفة بقراءة مصادر توينبي نفسه بعد ذلك
August 7, 2014
يعتبر بمثابة مقدمة او نبذة عن نظرية توينبى التاريخية
استنبطها الكاتب (محمد شبل ) من خلال ترجمته لكتاب "مختصر دراسة التاريخ "
الذى هو عبارة عن ملخص للموسوعة الكبيرة والمهمة لأرنولد توينبي "دراسة للتاريخ "وتقع فى 12 جزء
الكتاب جيد ولكن يصعب على من يقرأ لتوينبى أول مرة ان يفهم ويستوعب مصلحاته ونظريته
ولا أعرف هل السبب أنها قرائتى الأولى له ام لعيب فى الترجمة
استنبطها الكاتب (محمد شبل ) من خلال ترجمته لكتاب "مختصر دراسة التاريخ "
الذى هو عبارة عن ملخص للموسوعة الكبيرة والمهمة لأرنولد توينبي "دراسة للتاريخ "وتقع فى 12 جزء
الكتاب جيد ولكن يصعب على من يقرأ لتوينبى أول مرة ان يفهم ويستوعب مصلحاته ونظريته
ولا أعرف هل السبب أنها قرائتى الأولى له ام لعيب فى الترجمة
September 25, 2011
يقسم توينبى الحضارات الى اجزاء منهم ضارات فانية ومنهم حضاراتت مازالت موجودة
وشرح كيف تتكون الحضارات وكيق تتقدم ولماذا تتصارع
وماهى اصول تلك الحضارات
بالرغم من قصر الكتاب الا انة مفيد جدا
وشرح كيف تتكون الحضارات وكيق تتقدم ولماذا تتصارع
وماهى اصول تلك الحضارات
بالرغم من قصر الكتاب الا انة مفيد جدا
February 7, 2013
الكتاب مثير للاهتمام لكنه مختصر جداً وعلى القارئ أن يتوسع في قراءة التاريخ وقراءة كتب ماركس قبل قراءة هذا "الملخص"
كنت أتمنى لو أن الكاتب الذي قام بالتلخيص أن يتوسع بالشرح أكثر في بعض مقاطع الكتاب
كنت أتمنى لو أن الكاتب الذي قام بالتلخيص أن يتوسع بالشرح أكثر في بعض مقاطع الكتاب
March 30, 2013
This 1972 edition (ISBN 0192152548) is NOT Somervell's abridgement but a newer revision by the author himself with Jane Caplan.
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September 23, 2015(review based on the 1972 one-volume edition by the original author and Jane Caplan)
Arnold J. Toynbee does not subscribe to the rules of modern science as exemplified by Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion. He explicitly assigns to historians the task of imposing their own reference frame and vocabulary to make sense of the scattered evidence from documents, archeological finds and oral tradition. The purpose of the historian is not to argue in favour of a Hauptsatz, but to achieve spiritual fulfilment by recognizing connections between people who live thousands of kilometers or thousands of years apart from each other.
The basic unit of study in Toynbee's work is the class civilization. Civilizations are objects that can be compared, differentiated and classified. Pioneers in the field that would later be labeled comparative history had to infer analogies and conclusions based on limited knowledge of 2 or 3 civilizations; Toynbee calls himself lucky to be able to draw on sources that pertain to no less than 31 of them.
In the abstract passages it is not always easy to ignore the rambling tone of the author. He is frequently arguing, not always equally convincingly, in favour of the spiritual or religious dimension of history. He elevates the "higher religions" above the level of mere civilizations because they have demonstrated, in his view, the capacity to bridge the barbarian gaps between successive civilizations. And I am sure there must be a better marxist term for what he labels the "schism in the soul" of a civilization. (Marx, by the way, is not necessarily less rambling than Toynbee)
On the other hand the book, even in this abridged edition, contains a wealth of references to factual material in world history that would appear distinctly less interesting when merely presented as such, but that gains significance through his narrative of growth and decline of civilizations. Whether or not one accepts civilizations as objective, falsifiable givens: they certainly make sense as abstractions (if not metaphors) to tie the story together.
The book is also a useful correction on the rather appallingly biased history program in Flemish (and probably other European) secondary schools. Here I want to single out two examples that mattered to me personally: the importance of the clash between Hellenism and Syriac culture to explain the creation of Christianity and Islam; and the role of the Bactrian empire for the contact between Asian and European/Near Eastern cultures.
Modern comparative history tries to identify parallels at a rather more specific level than the broad, sweeping notions of Toynbee; yet the ambition of Toynbee's program seems to make up for his occasional lack of scientific distance.
Arnold J. Toynbee does not subscribe to the rules of modern science as exemplified by Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion. He explicitly assigns to historians the task of imposing their own reference frame and vocabulary to make sense of the scattered evidence from documents, archeological finds and oral tradition. The purpose of the historian is not to argue in favour of a Hauptsatz, but to achieve spiritual fulfilment by recognizing connections between people who live thousands of kilometers or thousands of years apart from each other.
The basic unit of study in Toynbee's work is the class civilization. Civilizations are objects that can be compared, differentiated and classified. Pioneers in the field that would later be labeled comparative history had to infer analogies and conclusions based on limited knowledge of 2 or 3 civilizations; Toynbee calls himself lucky to be able to draw on sources that pertain to no less than 31 of them.
In the abstract passages it is not always easy to ignore the rambling tone of the author. He is frequently arguing, not always equally convincingly, in favour of the spiritual or religious dimension of history. He elevates the "higher religions" above the level of mere civilizations because they have demonstrated, in his view, the capacity to bridge the barbarian gaps between successive civilizations. And I am sure there must be a better marxist term for what he labels the "schism in the soul" of a civilization. (Marx, by the way, is not necessarily less rambling than Toynbee)
On the other hand the book, even in this abridged edition, contains a wealth of references to factual material in world history that would appear distinctly less interesting when merely presented as such, but that gains significance through his narrative of growth and decline of civilizations. Whether or not one accepts civilizations as objective, falsifiable givens: they certainly make sense as abstractions (if not metaphors) to tie the story together.
The book is also a useful correction on the rather appallingly biased history program in Flemish (and probably other European) secondary schools. Here I want to single out two examples that mattered to me personally: the importance of the clash between Hellenism and Syriac culture to explain the creation of Christianity and Islam; and the role of the Bactrian empire for the contact between Asian and European/Near Eastern cultures.
Modern comparative history tries to identify parallels at a rather more specific level than the broad, sweeping notions of Toynbee; yet the ambition of Toynbee's program seems to make up for his occasional lack of scientific distance.
March 19, 2018
(I didn't read parts VI to XI)
This book tells more about the time (and place) in which it was written than about history itself.
How Toynbee manages to totally ignore something like economy is beyond me.
His (mis)use of the yin-yang concept is embarrassing and his other interpretations of mythology often questionable.
His arguments against environmental determinism are nowadays completely laughable: he proves the opposite of what he wants to prove. (There may be better arguments, but he doesn't give them.)
An upside is that the illustrations in this edition are very well-chosen.
This book tells more about the time (and place) in which it was written than about history itself.
How Toynbee manages to totally ignore something like economy is beyond me.
His (mis)use of the yin-yang concept is embarrassing and his other interpretations of mythology often questionable.
His arguments against environmental determinism are nowadays completely laughable: he proves the opposite of what he wants to prove. (There may be better arguments, but he doesn't give them.)
An upside is that the illustrations in this edition are very well-chosen.
August 5, 2016
I rate this book a 4.14 on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being best. I read an abridged version. I was very impressed at the time with certain of the historical patterns observed by this writer. In particular I remember his observation, with multiple examples, of how the conquerors often wind up adopting major cultural attributes of the vanquished. This is a must for those looking at the panoramic view of the entire sweep.
September 30, 2016
قدم توينبي طريقة جديدة لمعالجة التاريخ على اسس المذهب الوضعي جاعلاُ من التاريخ دراسة لها كيان خاص مشتق من مناهج البحث في علوم الطبيعية قسم الظواهر التي يجدها في بحثه بطريقة تسهل من عملية التقييم .. يرى ان للتاريخ جانبين مادي وروحاني وهنا يفترق عن الذين يسردون التاريخ كوقائع دون البحث وراء الدوافع وعن فلاسفة الماركسية الذين ابتكرو الفلسفة المادية التاريخية
May 16, 2021
Πέρασα πολλά αποσπάσματα με τεράστια αμφισβήτηση αλλά κράτησα ένα και μόνο στοιχείο για το οποίο κανείς δε μπορεί να ισχυριστεί το αντίθετο: τα ίδια στην ουσία κοινωνικά μοτίβα επαναλαμβάνονται ξανά και ξανά και ξανά στο πέρασμα των χρόνων με διαφορετική "στολή" κάθε φορά, πλην όμως εφανίζονται ξανά και καθορίζουν την εξέλιξη των κοινωνιών όπως κάθε προηγούμενη φορά.
August 3, 2021
Toynbee’s approach to history is (rightly) discredited, as is his notion of “civilization.” Furthermore, as others have noted, the whole thing is shot through with inaccuracies and is generally indifferent to facts. I nonetheless enjoyed this abridged (2vol) version as an intellectual snapshot of the 1930s-50s.
February 8, 2022
I finally finished!!!! yay!!!
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November 10, 2019What did you think? This one was mindful that this edition went to print before he was born and that the text often reads with an early to mid twentieth century sensibility.
May 23, 2020
كتاب اقل مايقال عنه تحفة في مجاله .
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews