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Toynbee and World Politics
Basic Forces Underlying Contemporary International Relations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Extract
The search for more general truths in international relations leads to an examination of the basic forces that shape the conduct of foreign relations. This has been a major preoccupation of the new study of international relations. Scholarly observers holding up a mirror to international society note certain common features, some going back to the Greeks, others to the Treaty of Westphalia, others to the French Revolution, and still others to the Industrial Revolution. Some theorists identify a few elemental facts or “laws” of politics whose recurrence spans all historical eras: for example, Thucydides, Hobbes, the Federalists, and contemporary political realists speak with one voice about the stubborn reality of the balance of power. Underlying present-day international relations, however, the basic forces which give content to international behavior are for the most part the product of modern history. Nationalism and industrialization are new-fangled ideas which had to await fundamental social and economic changes. For Arnold Toynbee the fundamental forces of modern international relations are westernization, contemporary nationalism, and the rise of masses. The clue may be found in this triad to much of the bewilderingly complex and rapidly changing movement of international events. Any effort to understand Toynbee's approach to world politics must comprehend these elements in his thinking. With the publication of the last four volumes of his major work, we are able to view for the first time the full canvas on which he has traced their influence.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright
- Copyright © 1956 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1. Arnold J. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial (New York, Oxford University Press, 1948), p. 214.
2. Ibid.
3. Toynbee: A Study of History (London, Oxford University Press, 1939), Vol. V, p. 89.
4. Royal Institute of International Affairs, Survey of International Affairs, 1928 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1929), pp. 188-189.
5. A Study of History, Vol. III, p. 3, n. 4.
6. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 151.
7. Ibid., Vol. III, p. 51.
8. Henry T. Buckle, Introduction to the History of Civilization in England (New York, Albert and Charles Boni, 1925), Vol. I, pp. 90-91.
9. A Study of History, Vol. V, p. 47.
10. Survey of International Affairs, 1928, p. 189.
11. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, p. 221.
12. Ibid., p. 207.
13. Survey of International Affairs, 1933, p. 117.
14. Ibid., pp. 117-118.
15. Ibid., p. 118.
16. Ibid., pp. 118-119.
17. A Study of History, Vol. IV, pp. 165-166.
18. Ibid., p. 166.
19. Toynbee, Nationality and the War (London, J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1915), p. 13.
20. Ibid.
21. Carlton J. H. Hayes, Essays on Nationalism (New York, The Macmillan Co., 1926), p. 16.
22. Frederick J. Teggart, Theory and Processes of History (Berkeley, University of Cali fornia Press, 1941), pp. 28-29.
23. Survey of International Affairs, 1931, p. 376.
24. A Study of History, Vol. I, p. 61.
25. Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 186.
26. Ibid., p. 185.
27. Ibid., Vol. V, p. 160.
28. Survey of International Affairs, 1934, p. 271.
29. Ibid.
30. Hayes, op. cit., p. 247.
31. Quincy Wright, A Study of War (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1942), Vol. II, p. 987.
32. Survey of International Affairs, 1933, P. 133.
33. A Study of History, Vol. V, p. 49.
34. Ibid., p. 189.
35. Ibid., Vol. IV, p. 175.
36. Nationality and the War, p. 9.
37. Reinhold Niebuhr, Beyond Tragedy: Essays on the Christian Interpretation of History (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1937), p. 85.
38. Survey of International Affairs, 1929, p. 438.
39. Ibid., 1933, p. III.