A Study of History: Volume I: Abridgement of Volumes I-VI

The late Arnold Toynbee was Director of Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and Research Professor of International History at the University of London and author of numerous other books, including Mankind and Mother Earth: A Narrative History of the World. The late D.C. Somervell was a teacher at Tonbridge School in England.

It is safe to say that there can be few people for whom the reading of Mr Toynbee's work will not be a deeply significant event. It would have struck the imagination of any age by its originality, its range, its learning and its power ... here the reader is offered not some clever and arresting adaptation of the latest novelty in psychology or biology to politics but a large, measured, tranquil and philosophical examination of history by a writer who adds to the rare intellectual equipment needed for so Herculean a task the advantage of experience of public life and contact with foreign scholars and politicians ... nobody can doubt its immense importance to an age that is in disorder because men's habits of mind keep them in a small world while their economic life puts them in a large.