Arnold Toynbee

Arnold Toynbee , 1852-83, English economic historian, philosopher, and reformer. After his graduation in 1878 he was a tutor at Balliol College, Oxford, and was active in reform work outside the university, particularly among the London poor. His influence on his students and contemporaries was great, although he lived to be only 31. Toynbee was interested in applying historical method to the study of economics. He objected to Marxism, believing that the best interests of labor and capital lay in cooperation. His lectures to workingmen were published as Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century in England (1884), a pioneer work in economic history. Toynbee Hall in London, the first settlement house, was named for him.

Bibliography: See biographies by A. Milner (1901) and F. C. Montague (1889, repr. 1973).

Arnold Joseph Toynbee 1889-1975, English historian; nephew of Arnold Toynbee . Educated at Oxford, he served in the British foreign office during World Wars I and II and was a delegate (1919) to the Paris Peace Conference. He was professor of Greek language and history (1919-55) at the Univ. of London and director of studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (1925-55). A prolific scholar, Toynbee achieved his greatest fame for his monumental work, A Study of History (12 vol., 1934-61), which appeared in an abridgment by D. C. Somervell (2 vol., 1946-57). In the Study of History, an investigation into the growth, development, and decay of civilizations, the problems of history are considered in terms of cultural groups rather than nationalities. The main thesis of the work is that the well-being of a civilization depends on its ability to respond successfully to challenges, human and environmental. Of the 26 civilizations studied, according to Toynbee, only one—Western Latin Christendom—is currently alive, and perhaps even this in decline. He has been criticized for arbitrary generalizations, factual errors, and overemphasizing the regenerative force of religion. Toynbee helped to write and edit A Survey of International Affairs and produced works on a multitude of historical topics.

Bibliography: See the biography by W. H. McNeill (1989); study by K. Thompson (1985).

industrial revolution In 1837 Louis‐Auguste Blanqui used the phrase to describe the changes Britain had undergone during the previous half‐century in her social and economic life. Widespread use of the term followed from Arnold Toynbee's Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century in England published in 1884. Debates about the precise period and its meaning reflected efforts to identify what brought about the transformation from a predominantly rural society, whose major source of livelihoods derived from the land, to a rapidly urbanizing country whose wealth came from commerce and manufacturing.

Symbolic of the industrial revolution was the use of coal as a source of energy. The conversion of coal to coke made cheaper iron ore smelting possible and simultaneously produced town gas, used from the early 19th cent. for lighting. Coal‐fuelled boilers provided steam‐power for mines drainage, factory machinery, and locomotives, making speed and repetitive activities less arduous and greatly augmenting output. Particularly associated with such changes were cotton textiles, made cheaply in large quantities.

Social changes occurred simultaneously. Many new jobs were created between the later 18th and the mid‐19th cent. from the ever widening applications of technical innovations such as in gas‐making, in the chemical industry, in canal and railway transport, and in textiles. New methods of industrial production also required many people to move to urban locations. Some existing towns such as Manchester expanded very rapidly, whilst new towns emerged, such as St Helens (Merseyside). Rapid urban growth posed many unforeseen problems of overcrowded houses, inadequate sanitation, and law and order.

Many historians, geographers, and political economists have sought to explain the origins of the changes during the second half of the 18th cent. and why they should have occurred in Britain. The search for one main underlying cause has led to elaborate and careful studies of both economic activities and social developments, including geographical determination, religious discrimination against nonconformists, technological innovations in sources of power, and the rise of literacy.

In contrast other historians have challenged the very concept of an industrial revolution. For example, econometric techniques applied by N. F. R. Crafts and others indicate slow rates of change in British economic life. Innovations in technology and in organization occurred piecemeal in different parts of the economy, suggesting that the image of revolution seems inappropriate.