Editing Arnold J. Toynbee (section)

==Academic and cultural influence==
[[File:A Study of History.jpg|thumb|[[D. C. Somervell|Somervell's]] abridgement of Toynbee's ''[[magnum opus]]'' ''[[A Study of History]]'']]
[[File:Time (magazine) 17 March 1947.jpg|thumb|Toynbee on the front cover of Time magazine, 17 March 1947]]
Michael Lang says that for much of the twentieth century, 
{{blockquote|Toynbee was perhaps the world's most read, translated, and discussed living scholar. His output was enormous, hundreds of books, pamphlets, and articles. Of these, scores were translated into thirty different languages....the critical reaction to Toynbee constitutes a veritable intellectual history of the midcentury: we find a long list of the period's most important historians, [[Charles Austin Beard|Beard]], [[Fernand Braudel|Braudel]], [[R. G. Collingwood|Collingwood]], and so on.<ref name=lang2011>{{cite journal |last1=Lang |first1=Michael |s2cid=142992220 |title=Globalization and Global History in Toynbee |date=December 2011 |journal=[[Journal of World History]] |volume=22 |issue=4 |pages=747–783 |doi=10.1353/jwh.2011.0118 }}<!--|access-date=7 April 2014-->{{subscription required}}</ref>}}

In his best-known work, ''[[A Study of History]]'', published 1934–1961,<ref>Published in 12 volumes from 1934 to 1961 under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs by Oxford University Press with the disclaimer in each volume ''The Royal Institute of International Affairs is an unofficial and non-political body, founded in 1920 to encourage and facilitate the scientific study of international questions. The Institute, as such, is precluded by its rules from expressing an opinion on any aspects of international affairs: opinions expressed in this book are, therefore, purely individual.</ref> Toynbee

<blockquote>examined the rise and fall of 26 civilisations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders.<ref name=EBonlineToynbee>{{cite web |title= Arnold Toynbee |url= https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/601310/Arnold-Joseph-Toynbee |website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] Online Academic Edition |publisher= Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |date= 6 Apr 2014 |access-date= 6 April 2014}}{{subscription required}}</ref>
</blockquote>

''A Study of History'' was both a commercial and an academic success. In the US alone, more than 7,000 sets of the ten-volume edition were sold by 1955. A 1947 one-volume 1947 abridgement by [[David Churchill Somervell]] of the first six volumes sold over 300,000 copies in the US. Toynbee appeared on the cover of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine in 1947, with an article describing his work as "the most provocative work of historical theory written in England since Karl Marx's ''Capital''".<ref name=kennan1989>{{cite journal |last1=Kennan |first1=George F. |author-link=George F. Kennan|title=The History of Arnold Toynbee |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1989/jun/01/the-history-of-arnold-toynbee/?pagination=false |date=1 June 1989 |journal=[[The New York Review of Books]] |volume=36 |issue=9 |access-date=23 July 2014}}</ref> He became a regular commentator for the [[BBC]] on the then-current hostility between east and west and on non-western views of the western world.<ref name=montagu1956>{{cite book |editor1-last=Montagu |editor1-first=M. F. Ashley |editor1-link=Ashley Montagu |title=Toynbee and History: Critical Essays and Reviews |url=https://archive.org/details/toynbeehistorycr0000mont |url-access=registration |year=1956 |location=Boston |publisher=[[Porter Sargent]] |page=vii}}</ref><ref name=bbcRadio4Toynbee1952>{{cite web |title=The Psychology of Encounters—Arnold Toynbee: The World and the West: 1952 |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00h9lpw |website=[[BBC Radio 4]] |series=The Reith Lectures |date=14 December 1952 |access-date=8 April 2014}}</ref>

Toynbee's overall theory was taken up by some scholars, such as [[Ernst Robert Curtius]], as a sort of paradigm in the post-war period. In the opening pages of his own study of [[medieval Latin]] literature, Curtius wrote:
:How do cultures, and the historical entities which are their media, arise, grow and decay? Only a comparative morphology with exact procedures can hope to answer these questions. It was Arnold J. Toynbee who undertook the task.<ref name=curtius1953>{{cite book |last1=Curtius |first1=Ernst Robert |author-link=Ernst Robert Curtius|title=European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WrSpNfsBcocC |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=1953|isbn=978-0691018997 }}</ref>

After 1960, Toynbee's ideas faded in both academia and in popular culture. His work is seldom cited today.<ref name=mcintire1989>{{cite book |editor1-last=McIntire |editor1-first=C. T. |editor2-last=Perry |editor2-first=Marvin |title=Toynbee: Reappraisals |publisher=[[University of Toronto Press]] |year=1989 |isbn=978-0802057853}}</ref><ref name=perry1996>{{cite book |last1=Perry |first1=Marvin |title=Arnold Toynbee and the Western Tradition |series=American University Studies—5—Philosophy |volume=169 |location=New York |publisher=[[Peter Lang (publisher)|Peter Lang]] |year=1996 |isbn=978-0820426716}}</ref> In general, historians pointed to his preference for myths, allegories, and religion over factual data. His critics argued that his conclusions are more those of a Christian moralist than of a historian.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arnold-Joseph-Toynbee|title=Arnold Toynbee (British historian)|date=April 10, 2019|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|access-date=May 3, 2019}}</ref> In his 2011 article for the ''Journal of History'' titled "Globalization and Global History in Toynbee," historian Michael Lang wrote:
:To many world historians today, Arnold J. Toynbee is regarded like an embarrassing uncle at a house party. He gets a requisite introduction by virtue of his place on the family tree, but he is quickly passed over for other friends and relatives.<ref>LANG, MICHAEL. "Globalization and Global History in Toynbee." ''Journal of World History'', vol. 22, no. 4, 2011, pp. 747–783. ''JSTOR'', www.jstor.org/stable/41508017.</ref>

Toynbee's work continues to be referenced by some classical historians because "his training and surest touch is in the world of classical antiquity."<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Gruen |editor-first=Erich S. |editor-link=Erich S. Gruen |title=Imperialism in the Roman Republic |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w1xoAAAAMAAJ |series=European Problem Studies |chapter=Rome on the Brink of Expansion |year=1970 |publisher=[[Holt, Rinehart and Winston]] |at=Intro, page 10 |isbn=978-0-030-77620-5 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/imperialisminrom00grue }}</ref> His roots in classical literature are also manifested by similarities between his approach and that of classical historians such as [[Herodotus]] and [[Thucydides]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Is a History of Humanity Possible?|url=http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/history-humanity-possible-oxford-transnational-and-global-history-seminar|website=University of Oxford History Podcasts|access-date=1 July 2014}}</ref> [[Comparative history]], in which his work is often categorised, has been in the doldrums.<ref name="cohen2001">{{cite journal|last1=Cohen |first1=Deborah |title=Comparative History: Buyer Beware |url=http://www.ghi-dc.org/publications/ghipubs/bu/bulletinF01/29.23-33.pdf |date=Fall 2001 |journal=GHI Bulletin |volume=29 |pages=23–33 |access-date=8 April 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130328184207/http://www.ghi-dc.org/publications/ghipubs/bu/bulletinF01/29.23-33.pdf |archive-date=28 March 2013 }}</ref>

Toynbee is thanked in the acknowledgment section of [[Mark Lane (author)|Mark Lane]]'s ''[[Rush to Judgment]]'' (1966), which critiques the official explanation of the [[assassination of John F. Kennedy]], for having been "kind enough to read the manuscript and make suggestions" to the book.<ref name=ack>{{cite book |last1=Lane |first1=Mark |title=Rush to Judgment |date=1992 |publisher=Thunder's Mouth Press |page=25}}</ref>