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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
EAN: 9780195050806
ISBN: 0195050800
Label: Oxford University Press, USA
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 640
Publication Date: 1987-12-10
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Studio: Oxford University Press, USA

Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History has been acknowledged as one of the greatest achievements of modern scholarship. A ten-volume analysis of the rise and fall of human civilizations, it is a work of breath-taking breadth and vision. D.C. Somervell's abridgement, in two volumes, of this
magnificent enterprise, preserves the method, atmosphere, texture, and, in many instances, the very words of the original. Originally published in 1947 and 1957, these two volumes are themselves a great historical achievement.
Volume 1, which abridges the first six volumes of Toynbee's study, includes the Introduction, The Geneses of Civilizations, and The Disintegrations of Civilizations. Volume 2, an abridgement of Volumes VII-X, includes sections on Universal States, Universal churches, Heroic Ages, Contacts
Between Civilizations in Space, Contacts Between Civilizations in Time, Law and Freedom in History, The Prospects of the Western Civilization, and the Conclusion.
Of Somervell's work, Toynbee wrote, "The reader now has at his command a uniform abridgement of the whole book, made by a clear mind that has not only mastered the contents but has entered into the writer's outlook and purpose."

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Magnificant
Review: The reason why I am giving it five stars is that I cant give it 10! I didnt read the abridgement. Im still reading the actual 10 volumes. I just finished the fourth. I first came across this book while I was reading a book for Ali Shariati. Ali Shariati is usually critical of most things but he mentioned this book extremely favourably so I thought that I had to check it out. Thank God for that. Toynbee says that the greatest book ever written by man was Ibn Khaldoun's Muqadimat. I say that this book is the greatest book ever written, hands down.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Why the world is as it is now!
Review: A key to Toynbee, fascinating in itself. This is marvelous not only for its view of World History, but as an interesting example of writing style and expository method.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: This work has not aged well
Review: A study of history had been on my reading list for a while, I initially thought I'd go for the entire series but ended up reading this abridgement instead. I'm glad I chose the abridgement because reading the original would have been an even bigger waste of time.

This book supposedly covers all civilizations, but this is really true only insofar as all of them are MENTIONED at some point. The great majority of material is taken from western history, particularly from the classic Athens-Rome-Europe axis, with Christendom as the example of a "universal religion". The existing literature on non-European history was of course much more limited when this work was written than it is today, and undoubtedly mr Toynbee was very well acquainted with all the material available to him, but why should you as a reader of history today be limited by what was there in the 1940s?

The second problem with this work is its philosophy. Toynbee searches for genesis, growth, breakdown and disintegration patterns in the "life-cycle" of civilizations. This looks extremely interesting when you browse the table of contents, but the actual work is quite disappointing. Basically a model which applies reasonably well to western European history (Athens-Rome-Europe, again) is forcibly fitted to all other civilizations, and the results are not pretty. A couple of suitably interpreted cases from a couple of civilizations are enough to "prove" any given proposition. Possible objections are not discussed at all even though anyone with a good knowledge of world history will see that the argumentation is often ridiculously weak. Well, the good part is that these vain attempts at categorization and systematization of history will make you ponder how complex and multifarious history really is in reality.

Finally, I should mention that I think volumes VII-X provide more interesting reading because they do not drag the dead weight of the Argument with them. But on the other hand these latter volumes are burdened by the author's religious convictions which make some texts resemble sermons more than historical writing.

My recommendation is that you find your comparative history in books that are less ambitious but wiser.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The case for History as a guide
Review: I came to this book through a personal study of the secrets of human development. Singapore's miracle of development from 1970 on was the immediate precursor to discovering this work. The architect, Lee Kuan Yew, repeated read Toynbee's work through his career and used the challenge and response theory effectively to lift his country. Study of History is an enduring masterpiece. Clearly, it is more detailed and rich addressing western civilizations than eastern, but some of this imbalance might be due to the abridgement. I also find it interesting to contrast the book with Jared Diamond's "history as science" theory and would have loved to have seen Toynbee's consideration of Diamond's scholarship. Though Toynbee's emphasis is on the social, cultural and spiritual levels and boxes in geo physical factors in accord with the science of his era, I believe the two works complement each other in the end.

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Customer Rating:
Review 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.

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