Foreword

Extract

The first three volumes of A Study of History appeared in 1934; the last four are not yet two years old. During the interim the work of Arnold Toynbee has been widely disseminated, thanks to the abridged edition prepared by D. C. Somervell in 1946. Vigorously attacked by historians as soon as it appeared, the work continued to evoke their serious reservations. Some concentrated their efforts on pointing out multiple errors of chronology, fact, emphasis and interpretations: others, attacking the very inspiration or magnitude of the endeavor, judged it to be presumptuous and vain, foredoomed to failure, and all in all more the product of an outmoded concept of the philosophy of history than of proven methods of historical research.