A Study of History: Abridgement of Volumes 1-VI (Study of History)

Rating:
Summary: An absolute must have hardcover to pass down to your kids
Review: A Study of History is an excellent, lifetime study of how and why civilization progresses through time. Written in 1939, Toynbee predicts the rise of nationalism, the fall of the USSR, and victory of capitalism, and the enormous growth of Western culture. His central theme is simple yet true: civilizations advance by overcoming outside challenges and internal stagnation. Read this once per lifetime.

Rating:
Summary: And you thought Nostrodomus was a prophet!
Review: A Study of History is an excellent, lifetime study of how and why civilization progresses through time. Written in 1939, Toynbee predicts the rise of nationalism, the fall of the USSR, and victory of capitalism, and the enormous growth of Western culture. His central theme is simple yet true: civilizations advance by overcoming outside challenges and internal stagnation. Read this once per lifetime.

Rating:
Summary: Japanese History (Archaeology) Based on Toynbee Theory
Review: I am interested in Japanese ancient history and archaeological study based on Arnold J. Toynbee theory.I always want to publish my theory in any journal in the world. I am Japanese living London 10 years. If someone can help me publishing my article about this subject whatever journal, for recommendation journal,for rewriter, adviser, suggestion, any information are welcome. My e-mail address is: [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: Muddling through history
Review: I am Japanese archaeologist living in London 10 years. I am interested in comparative ancient and modern historical study between Japan and western world based on Toynbee Theory. If someone interested in the same subject, please do contact me to my this e-mail address. We can exchange information. [e-mail]

Rating:
Summary: 4 Stars Only Because of Abridgment
Review: I don't normally go after other reviewers, but the dolts submitting their thoughts about this author are uninformed in the extreme. If ever there were a "desert island" author and a book that I would want to have with me on said island it is this one (though not the abridged version). Toynbee is a true polymath and one of the progenitors of Jacob Burckhardt, Daniel J. Boorstin, Jacques Barzun, et al. He delivers in concise, exquisitely rendered prose, an overview of western culture that has never been matched in terms of scope and economy - two terms that are not always congruous. For insights into the development of western civilization, its driving forces, main events, greatest influences, etc. , one need look no further than Toynbee. To compare it to Wells' work is to compare persimmons to oranges. One leaves a slightly bitter, puckery taste, the other slakes one's thirst.

Rating:
Summary: Landmark Work
Review: I first became acquainted with the name of Arnold Toynbee through reading the science fiction of Arthur C. Clarke. Later, I saw references to him in Heinlein and Poul Anderson, and decided to see what it was all about. This book was worth reading. Toynbee's thesis is that all societies rise and fall through a process of "challenge and response."

As long as a society is growing, encountering new challenges, overcoming them, and moving on to other challenges, it is healthy. He also describes the "dominant minority," "external proletariat," and "internal proletariat" groups that make up societies. For instance, to take the example of Rome, the Romans themselves were the dominant minority, whose traditions sustained the Republic and then the Empire. The internal proletariat of Rome was the Christian religion, which came to inherit the prestige of the Romans. The external minorities were the Slavic and Germanic tribes on the northern borders, which were kept at bay until the dominant minority lost its will to expand.

Toynbee does not see empires (such as the Roman Empire) or "universal states" as triumphs of a society's strength, but rather as a sign of weakness. A healthy society expands, develops creative arts, and encourages social mobility; an empire has rigid rules of conduct, laws, and social hierarchy. Toynbee's thesis is an excellent primer for understanding history, and can easily be applied to today's societies, including ours. He offers many different examples of growing, static, and declining societies, and shows an incredible mastery of his subject.

Now the bad news: This is dry, tough reading. There are no maps, no visuals, and few "helps" for people unfamiliar with world history. Toynbee wrote for a scholarly audience, and assumed everyone reading would know what he was talking about. Toynbee also has a streak of racism that most clearly comes across in his discussion of Africa. He does not even deem African civilizations in his text, and decries the influence of "African rhythms" on Western culture (jazz, at the time of his writing). You've got to really like history to get into this stuff, but there are some profound things in Toynbee's work, which can make you look seriously at who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.

Rating:
Summary: Landmark Work
Review: I won't spend time writing all the myriad ways in which I admired this work. It would take too long. If you have an intellectual bent, if you are interested in history, this work is a treasure trove.
I particular admire that the author, unlike Spengler, found a space for God at the head of all that he documents; the author was not swayed by the simplistic atheistic zeitgeist of our age.

Rating:
Summary: His emphasis is better than more modern works
Review: People who consider Michael Moore's latest movie, `Fahrenheit 9/11,' sort of crazy, particularly when it is talking about attempts to keep Americans afraid that they are about to be attacked in some way that no one could guess, or, conversely, when it provides R-rated examples of a CD that American troops are able to listen to in their helmets through an armored fighting vehicle's soundtrack system to illustrate how pumped up troops feel going into combat, could feel that the abridgement by D. C. Somervell of Arnold Toynbee's multi-volume set into two small volumes is too selective to encompass the whole picture. People with strong political opinions might even agree with Walter Kaufmann, at the end of his book, FROM SHAKESPEARE TO EXISTENTIALISM, that Arnold J. Toynbee's attempt to write A STUDY OF HISTORY in ten volumes, which provides abundant lessons which leaders of today ought to heed to avoid the ignominious fate of numerous nations, peoples, and civilizations who are far less prosperous than Americans today, if certain outstanding obligations are not considered and everything which must be reported as income for tax purposes is assumed to benefit someone, actually amounts to a form of argument in which, "His method is what Stephen Potter calls `one-upmanship.' Where a red herring might be recognized and challenged, the queer fish that Toynbee introduces with an air of mildly bored authority silence all opposition--unless you either happen to know about them or have the patience to find out." (Kaufmann, FSTE, Chapter 20, `Toynbee and Religion,' p. 413).

The Table of Contents has parts and chapters both consecutively numbered with Roman Numerals, so Part V. The Disintegration of Civilizations, includes Chapter XIX. Schism in the Soul. Subdivisions such as (3) Truancy and Martyrdom show such mixtures of cowardice and courage that even Toynbee gets caught considering subjective natures in the worst possible light:

`~`The truant soul of which we are in search is a soul whose truancy is inspired by a genuine feeling that the cause which it serves is not really worth the service that this cause demands of it. Similarly the martyr soul of which we are in search is the soul which goes to martyrdom not merely or mainly to render practical service to the furtherance of that cause but rather to satisfy a craving of the soul itself for deliverance from

the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world. [W. Wordsworth, `Tintern Abbey]

Such a martyr, noble as he may be, is psychologically more than half a suicide. He is, in modern jargon, an escapist, as is also of course our truant an escapist of a more ignoble variety.'~' (Toynbee, A STUDY OF HISTORY Abr. Vol. I, p. 442).

Continuing on the same page, the disintegration of civilizations was not a pretty picture, even in ancient times:

`~`The Christian Church was the principal target for the parting strokes of a Hellenic dominant minority which turned savage in its death-agony; for this dying pagan ruling class refused to face the heart-rending truth that it was itself the author of its own downfall and destruction. Even in articulo mortis it tried to salvage a last shred of self-respect by persuading itself that it was perishing as the victim of a dastardly assault on the part of the proletariat; and, since the external proletariat was now marshalled in formidable war-bands which were able to defy or elude the Imperial Government's attempts at retaliation for their galling raids, the brunt fell upon the Christian Church, which was the master institution of the internal proletariat.'~'

Toynbee is able to appreciate the martyrs of the early Christian Church. "Ignatius of Antioch, one of the notable Christian martyrs of the second century, speaks of himself as `the wheat of God' and longs for the day when he shall be `ground by the teeth of wild beasts into the pure bread of Christ'." (Vol. I, p. 443).

There is much more to Toynbee than theology, but it was a very religious time when Volume I of the Abridged A STUDY OF HISTORY was published in 1947 and became an international best-seller. The second abridged volume appeared much later.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting ideas
Review: Toynbee has three major theories of the rise and fall of civilizations.

1. Challange and response. There must be a challange to the population in order for a civilization to rise. The challange must be just right. Too little and the civilization does not rise. Too great a challange and the civilization is destroyed before it gets a chance or rise or is destroyed soon thereafter.

2. Withdrawl and change. An element of the civilization withdraws in some manner from the central civilization and undergoes some sort of creative transformation which it then introduces to the greater body of the civilization. This is a mechanism for maintaining the civilization.

3. The Nemesis of Creativity: There is within a civilization a creative minority. If the creative minority lacks the opportunity to create, the civilization will die or stagnate. This can happen in two ways: The majority group, lacking the talent to create, gains enough power to create, but the creativity is second rate and the civilization dies or stagnates. On the other hand, an exogenous group may gain power over the avenues of creativity and the creativity produced is destructive to the civiliation.

Of the three basic ideas the Nemesis of Creativity notion seems the most insightful. The challange and response seems little more than the golden mean. Withdrawl and change seems more relevant. As far as the Nemesis of creativity is concerned, this can be visualized in a simple microcosm. Suppose, for example, government action were taken which prevented the highly talented minority from obtaining either an education or given a good education, this minority were prevented from getting prime jobs. If, say, the space program were afflicted with this sort of thing, second-rate engineers, managers, scientists and such would be in positions of responsibility. Their positions would promote failure. It would be better to give these people jobs with good pay and no decision-making powers.