A Study of History, Vol 2

Title: A Study of History, Vol 2 – The Geneses of Civilizations, Part 2

Author: Arnold Joseph Toynbee

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1985 (First published 1935)

ISBN: 978-0-19-215208-4

Pages: 452

In this sequel to Volume 1, which introduced the concept of historical study and attempted to set the stage on the discussion of the geneses of civilizations, Toynbee develops the principles and completes the description on the geneses of civilizations. The theory of Challenge and Response that postulates the development of civilization as a response to challenges coming from human and physical environments is further elaborated and concluded with a flourish. The author categorizes the challenges as originating from hard geography, new ground, blows and pressures from neighbouring societies and also penalization from a dominant counterpart. With a multitude of illuminating examples, each of the postulates is examined threadbare and proved. In the end, the idea of a ‘Golden Mean’ is introduced, that the individual societies’ civilizational response to challenges will be the maximum when the harshness of it is at an optimum – not too harsh or too easy. The book also contains a hypothetical analysis of the course history would have followed, if several abortive civilizations had been able to fend off their devastation against their foes that resulted in their annihilation at various points in time.

The second volume begins with a categorical debunking of the myth that civilizations emerge at sites where nature provides man with bountiful produce. Toynbee establishes that the opposite is true in this case, that is, whenever the land is sufficiently fertile for agriculture, or packed with game, the societies inhabiting these gardens of Eden never pass out of the primitive stage. Civilization emerges when the terrain is so unproductive that the society makes hard decisions about how best to convert the challenge they are facing into a stimulus for change. The empirical study in support of this argument is replete with examples from around the world. We see it in Roman Campagna, in Capua, in Central America and may other places. Then, the stimulus exerted by hard countries work out miraculous pathways for the society to expand and impose its will on its less adventurous neighbors. A case of Attica and Boeotia in Greece extols the point in convincing detail. Boeotia is an agriculturally well endowed country which presents no challenge to the resident. This soporific affect on the moral fiber of the society has caused unmitigated reversals in the political front, as Boeotia was always a subjugated neighbor among her peers. Attica was different in that the land was rocky, with poor rainfall and unfit for cultivation of grain. So the inhabitants tried olive as the crop. The fruit and oil it produced had to be sold in overseas markets for Attica to import its food grains. This caused the Attic people to develop commercial ties with cities in the Aegean basin and to cultivate a powerful military regime that was maritime in its scope. This affluence paved the way for the efflorescence of ancient Greece. This example may be correlated mutatis mutandis to other places and the idea is the same.

New territory and human interaction are the cause of stimulus that is the fountain head of the birth of civilizations. When societies acquire new ground by conquest or assimilation, its institutions flourish on virgin soil much deeper than the place of origin. Being an empirical study, there is no dearth of examples suitably dressed up to stand witness to the author’s theory. He makes a curious observation regarding Hinduism’s growth in South India in this regard – India’s ancient religion grew out of the Indic Civilization and crowned as its universal church in the Gangetic plain. It percolated to the south during the first few centuries of Common Era and has struck deeper roots there than on the shores of the Ganga where it sprouted. A related source of stimulus is the interaction with barbarians outside the pale who are generally at loggerheads with the civilization in question. Toynbee argues that the vitality originated from the stimulus obtained by pressure from outside plays a crucial role in the maturing of a civilization. Again, the arguments are supported by a plethora of samples. The life strength of the society will be concentrated on the frontier marches in its all out bid to win over the outsiders. And once its objective is vindicated, the stimulus disappears and the locus of the creative spirit moves again to another frontier where this civilization is threatened by external human factors.

The argument in this volume concludes with the formulation of a theory of the ‘Golden Mean’. Challenge and response don’t work in a linear way. When the challenge goes on increasing, response breaks down at some point, from the excess stimulation. Similarly, when it goes down, response may fail to be produced. The ideal return is generated when the challenge is optimized. One example, out of the several cited, proves the point. The Scandinavian society had its home in Norway, but being adventurous, they migrated, and in a series of explorations called Viking invasions colonized Iceland and Greenland. The flower of Scandinavian civilization blossomed in Iceland, where their social, political and literary achievements far surpassed those at their home in Norway. This is due to the lack of challenge in Norway, but which existed in Iceland due to the rugged terrain and harsh climate. However, the stimulation thus originated in Iceland couldn’t be sustained in Greenland where the harshness multiplied manifold and the budding civilization withered. With the establishment of the concept of the Golden Mean, Toynbee ends his second volume, by formulating the principles that lead to geneses of civilizations.

Toynbee’s pioneering effort to formulate a theoretical framework to the flow of history doesn’t have parallels among scholars in the wideness of cited examples and the depth of analysis of the events. But a few chinks in the armor may be identified. As a part of justification for the theory of stimulus from difficult terrain, he identifies a location in New England which the initial English-speaking conquerors had abandoned when they moved on to the west in America’s bid to claim the whole landmass between the oceans. French Canadians filled in the vacuum left behind by the founding fathers. The author observed the newcomers at work in this town, and then speculates that the country was equally challenging as it was when it was first subdued, and in due course, the new inhabitants may assume the mantle of kicking forward the onward march of civilization of their own. But this assertion turned out to be false, with the benefit of hindsight. The French newcomers merged gradually into the melting pot of American society, without leaving a trace of the constituents’ origins. Likewise, the author’s guess falls short of what actually happened in China. Its capital frequently changed between Peking and Nanking. The former was nearer to the barbarian frontier and was ideally suited to handle them with its proximity to the recalcitrant border. However, by the turn of 20^th century, these nomads were assimilated to the Chinese civilization that they were no longer alien. Around this time, the capital was again shifted to Nanking as a result of popular uprising and Toynbee makes a prediction from his theory that the capital may now stay in the south, as barbarians’ menace had abated in the North and the stimulus disappeared. But again, we know that the capital was once more moved to Peking, where it stays at present. On the other hand, the author’s prescient doubts about the viability of newly formed Balkan states on the principle of national sovereignty after the end of World War 1, is proved true by later events.

The author’s outlook is scholarly, universal and liberal if we examine the content. However, non-European readers may discern a shade of mild imperialism dancing between the lines. The merits and achievements of Western Christian Civilization are heralded in every sentence he writes in this regard. No doubt about the merits of the civilization in conquering every nook and cranny of the modern world is ever expressed. Toynbee in fact believes that Africans deserve to be under European occupation for their own good! As he says about Abyssinia in 1920s, (modern Ethiopia), “she is a byword for disorder and barbarity….In fact, the spectacle presented by the one indigenous African state that has succeeded in retaining its complete independence is perhaps the best justification that can be found for the partition of the rest of Africa among the European powers” (p.365).

The book is highly recommended to serious readers of history.

Rating: 4 Star