Not 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.
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).
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.
(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.
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.
What 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.