A Study of History by Arnold Joseph Toynbee

Toynbee considered few laws universally true, such as the law of diminishing returns. For example, he argued that, despite commonly held beliefs, free trade was not generally advantageous in itself, but only under certain circumstances, which should not be considered absolute. The Toynbees have been prominent in British intellectual society for several generations (this diagram is not a comprehensive Toynbee family tree):Īccording to Toynbee, applying the historical method in economics would reveal how supposedly universal economic laws were, in fact, relative.

He died for truth as he knew it, and those who knew him felt that his death was a national loss. Andrew's Hall, Oxford Street, against the book and the effort ended his career. Of weak physique, but full of a passionate spiritual enthusiasm, he gave two lectures at St. Frederick Rogers notes that the publication of Henry George's Progress and Poverty may be said to have brought about Toynbee's death: Īs saw the book, it was full of economic heresies, and he resolved to answer them. His health had rapidly deteriorated, probably due to exhaustion by excessive work. His wife was 12 years his senior and a cousin of Harold Davidson, the famous Rector of Stiffkey. He married the college administrator Charlotte Atwood on 26 June 1879. His lectures on the history of the Industrial Revolution in 18th- and 19th-century Britain proved widely influential in fact, Toynbee coined, or at least effectively popularised, the term 'Industrial Revolution' in the Anglophone world-in Germany and elsewhere it had been brought into circulation earlier by Friedrich Engels, also under the impression of the industrial changes in Britain. He further notes that the philanthropic work of Toynbee truly illustrated the teaching of one of Ruskin's greatest books, Unto This Last. Collingwood states that Toynbee was one of Ruskin's warmest admirers and ablest pupils. He was deeply influenced by John Ruskin while at Oxford. In 1873 he began to study political economy at Oxford University, first at Pembroke College and from 1875 at Balliol College, where he went on to teach after his graduation in 1878. Toynbee attended public schools in Blackheath and Woolwich. The two are often confused for each other due to the similarity of their names. Toynbee was the uncle, via his brother Harry Valpy Toynbee, of universal historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889–1975). His sister was the bacteriologist Grace Frankland. Toynbee was born in Syria, the son of the physician Joseph Toynbee, a pioneering otolaryngologist. Arnold Toynbee ( / ˈ t ɔɪ n b i/ 23 August 1852 – 9 March 1883) was a British economic historian also noted for his social commitment and desire to improve the living conditions of the working classes.

A Study of History by Arnold Joseph Toynbee