- This page is about the universal historian Arnold Joseph Toynbee; for his uncle, the economic historian Arnold Toynbee, see Arnold ToynbeeArnold ToynbeeArnold Toynbee was a British economic historian also noted for his social commitment and desire to improve the living conditions of the working classes.-Biography:...
. For further Toynbees and related topics see the disambiguation page ToynbeeToynbeeToynbee is a surname, and can refer to :* Joseph Toynbee, British physician, pioneer of otolaryngology,* Arnold Toynbee, British economist, son of Joseph Toynbee* Paget Toynbee, British Dante scholar...
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Arnold Joseph Toynbee CH
(14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975) was a British historian
whose twelve-volume analysis of the rise and fall of civilizations, A Study of History
, 1934–1961, was a synthesis of world history
, a metahistory
based on universal rhythms of rise, flowering and decline, which examined history from a global perspective.
The value of the goal lies in the goal itself; and therefore the goal cannot be attained unless it is pursued for its own sake.
We shall have to share out the fruits of technology among the whole of mankind. The notion that the direct and immediate producers of the fruits of technology have a proprietary right to these fruits will have to be forgotten. After all, who is the producer? Man is a social animal, and the immediate producer has been helped to produce by the whole structure of society, beginning with his own education.
Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self.