Concept

Arnold J. Toynbee

Overview

Arnold Joseph Toynbee (; 14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was an English historian, a philosopher of history, an author of numerous books and a research professor of international history at the London School of Economics and King's College London. From 1918 to 1950, Toynbee was considered a leading specialist on international affairs; from 1929 to 1956 he was the Director of Studies at Chatham House, in which position he also produced 34 volumes of the Survey of International Affairs, a "bible" for international specialists in Britain.

He is best known for his 12-volume A Study of History (1934–1961). With his large output of papers, articles, speeches, presentations, and numerous books translated into many languages, Toynbee was widely read and discussed in the 1940s and 1950s.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

1. Sec. X. Next our freeborn lad ought to go in for a course of what is called general knowledge, but a smattering of this will be sufficient, a taste as it were (for perfect knowledge of all subjects would be impossible); but he must seriously cultivate philosophy. I borrow an illustration to show my meaning: it is well to sail round many cities, but advantageous to live in the best.

   Plutarch, Plutarch's Morals

   States what Arnold J. Toynbee is; the author is tied to Arnold J. Toynbee in the knowledge graph.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

2. He spent much time on eloquence and philosophy, but selected his authors, and cared only for those by whom he might profit in virtue. In Homer's fictions his attention was given to whatever he thought apt to raise the courage. Of all other books he was most devoted to the commentaries of Evangelus on military tactics, and also took delight, at leisure hours, in the histories of Alexander; thinking that such reading…

   Plutarch, Plutarch

   The author is tied to Arnold J. Toynbee in the knowledge graph.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

3. By his writings and his personal influence he was a great centre of light to his generation. During his later years he was quite as much the head and leader of the intellectual radicals in England, as Voltaire was of the _philosophes_ of France. It is only one of his minor merits, that he was the originator of all sound statesmanship in regard to the subject of his largest work, India. He wrote on no subject which…

   John Stuart Mill, Autobiography

   Close in meaning to Arnold J. Toynbee; the term itself is not named.

   Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Philosophers who discussed Arnold J. Toynbee

• The Guardian
• Oswald Spengler
• José Ortega y Gasset
• Wincenty Lutosławski
• Martin Heidegger and Nazism

Related ideas

• Princeton University Press
• Herodotus
• Bachelor of Arts
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Byzantine Empire
• University of Toronto Press
• Internet Archive
• London
• The Guardian
• BBC
• Ibn Khaldun
• Ottoman Empire
• Oswald Spengler
• University of Edinburgh
• Plutarch
• Russian Revolution
• Soviet Union
• Social science
• Adolf Hitler
• Fernand Braudel
• Fellow of the British Academy
• American Philosophical Society
• The New York Review of Books
• Transylvania

Opposing perspectives

• Ibn Khaldun

Place in the tradition

Part of German philosophy.

Explore Arnold J. Toynbee in the interactive graph →