leitreem bailly markeshia
Maya Malbon
A Study of History is a 12-volume universal history by the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, published from 1934 to 1961. It received enormous popular attention but according to historian Richard J. Evans, "enjoyed only a brief vogue before disappearing into the obscurity in which it has languished."[1] Toynbee's goal was to trace the development and decay of 19 or 21 world civilizations in the historical record, applying his model to each of these civilizations, detailing the stages through which they all pass: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration.
Toynbee argues that civilizations are born out of more primitive societies, not as the result of racial or environmental factors, but as a response to challenges, such as hard country, new ground, blows and pressures from other civilizations, and penalization. He argues that for civilizations to be born, the challenge must be a golden mean; that excessive challenge will crush the civilization, and too little challenge will cause it to stagnate. He argues that civilizations continue to grow only when they meet one challenge only to be met by another, in a continuous cycle of "Challenge and Response". He argues that civilizations develop in different ways due to their different environments and different approaches to the challenges they face. He argues that growth is driven by "Creative Minorities": those who find solutions to the challenges, who inspire (rather than compel) others to follow their innovative lead. This is done through the "faculty of mimesis." Creative minorities find solutions to the challenges a civilization faces, while the great mass follow these solutions by imitation, solutions they otherwise would be incapable of discovering on their own.
Toynbee does not see the breakdown of civilizations as caused by loss of control over the physical environment, by loss of control over the human environment, or by attacks from outside. Rather, it comes from the deterioration of the "Creative Minority", which eventually ceases to be creative and degenerates into merely a "Dominant Minority".
The final breakdown results in "positive acts of creation;" the dominant minority seeks to create a Universal state to preserve its power and influence, and the internal proletariat seeks to create a Universal church to preserve its spiritual values and cultural norms.
He argues that the ultimate sign a civilization has broken down is when the dominant minority forms a "universal state", which stifles political creativity within the existing social order. The classic example of this is the Roman Empire, though many other imperial regimes are cited as examples. Toynbee writes:
Toynbee developed his concept of an "internal proletariat" and an "external proletariat" to describe quite different opposition groups within and outside the frontiers of a civilization. These groups, however, find themselves bound to the fate of the civilization.[5] During its decline and disintegration, they are increasingly disenfranchised or alienated, and thus lose their immediate sense of loyalty or of obligation. Nonetheless an "internal proletariat," untrusting of the dominant minority, may form a "universal church" which survives the civilization's demise, co-opting the useful structures such as marriage laws of the earlier time while creating a new philosophical or religious pattern for the next stage of history.[6]
Before the process of disintegration, the dominant minority had held the internal proletariat in subjugation within the confines of the civilization, causing these oppressed to grow bitter. The external proletariat, living outside the civilization in poverty and chaos, grows envious. Then, in the social stress resulting from the failure of the civilization, the bitterness and envy increase markedly.
Toynbee argues that as civilizations decay, there is a "schism" within the society. In this environment of discord, people resort to archaism (idealization of the past), futurism (idealization of the future), detachment (removal of oneself from the realities of a decaying world), and transcendence (meeting the challenges of the decaying civilization with new insight, e.g., by following a new religion). From among members of an "internal proletariat" who transcend the social decay a "church" may arise. Such an association would contain new and stronger spiritual insights, around which a subsequent civilization may begin to form. Toynbee here uses the word "church" in a general sense, e.g., to refer to a collective spiritual bond found in common worship, or the unity found in an agreed social order.
It remains to be seen what will come of the four remaining civilizations of the 21st century: Western civilization, Islamic society, Hindu society, and the Far East. Toynbee argues two possibilities: they might all merge with Western Civilization, or Western civilization might develop a 'Universal State' after its 'Time of Troubles', decay, and die.
The following table lists the 23 civilizations identified by Toynbee in vol. Vii. This table does not include what Toynbee terms primitive societies, arrested civilizations, or abortive civilizations. Civilizations are shown in boldface. Toynbee's "Universal Churches" are written in italic and are chronologically located between second- and third- generation civilizations, as is described in volume VII.
Historian Carroll Quigley expanded upon Toynbee's notion of civilizational collapse in The Evolution of Civilizations (1961, 1979).[7] He argued that societal disintegration involves the metamorphosis of social instruments, set up to meet actual needs, into institutions, which serve their own interest at the expense of social needs.[8]
Social scientist Ashley Montagu assembled 29 other historians' articles to form a symposium on Toynbee's A Study of History, published as Toynbee and History: Critical Essays and Reviews.[9] The book includes three of Toynbee's own essays: "What I am Trying to Do" (originally published in International Affairs vol. 31, 1955); What the Book is For: How the Book Took Shape (a pamphlet written upon completion of the final volumes of A Study of History) and a comment written in response to the articles by Edward Fiess and Pieter Geyl (originally published in Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 16, 1955.)
David Wilkinson suggests that there is an even larger unit than civilisation. Using the ideas drawn from "World Systems Theory" he suggests that since at least 1500 BC that there was a connection established between a number of formerly separate civilisations to form a single interacting "Central Civilisation", which expanded to include formerly separate civilisations such as India, the Far East, and eventually Western Europe and the Americas into a single "World System".[10] In some ways, it resembles what William H. McNeill calls the "Closure of the Eurasian Ecumene, 500 B.C.-200 A.D."[11]
After 1960, Toynbee's ideas faded both in academia and the media, to the point of seldom being cited today.[12][13] Toynbee's approach to history, his style of civilizational analysis, faced skepticism from mainstream historians who thought it put an undue emphasis on the divine, which led to his academic reputation declining, though for a time, Toynbee's Study remained popular outside academia. Nevertheless, interest revived decades later with the publication of The Clash of Civilizations (1997) by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington. Huntington viewed human history as broadly the history of civilizations and posited that the world after the end of the Cold War will be a multi-polar one of competing major civilizations divided by "fault lines."[14]
In popular culture, Toynbee's theories of historical cycles and civilisational collapse are said to have been a major inspiration for Isaac Asimov's seminal science-fiction novels, the Foundation series.[15]
In the introduction of his work Toynbee refers to a number of "fossilized relics" of societies, among others he mentions the Armenians, who according to Toynbee played a similar role to that of the Jews in the world of Islam.
"There remains the case where victims of religious discrimination represent an extinct society which only survives as a fossil. .... by far the most notable is one of the fossil remnants of the Syriac Society, the Jews."[17]
That sentence has been the subject of controversy, and some reviewers have interpreted the line as antisemitic (notably after 1945).[18][19][20][21][22] In later printings, a footnote was appended which read
NOTICE: Due to the high cost of printing, only a limited numbers of hard copies of The U.S. Army in the Iraq War will be produced. These copies will be distributed primarily to military educational institutions across the Joint force. Hardcopies of the study can be acquired through the Government Printing Office Bookstore. Organizations and individuals will be able to order printed copies. Both volumes of The U.S. Army in the Iraq War are available for pre-order through the GPO Bookstore. Volume 1 can be found here. And Volume 2 can be found here.
ADDENDUM: The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC) has no archive of declassified documents except for the declassified documents from U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) posted online here. USAHEC does not have the authority to declassify or to review OIF sources for release.
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Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) has been described to associate with coronary artery disease1 as well as influence myocardial function and geometry2. It has been suggested that vasocrine or paracrine effects may be the intermediary for transmission of pro-inflammatory adipokines from dysfunctional adipose tissue to the adjacent myocardium or coronary vasculature3. Additionally, local compressive forces of excess EAT may result in reduced myocardial compliance and subsequent diastolic dysfunction. However, most studies are cross-sectional in nature and the natural history of EAT is not well described. The few published studies are limited to small cohorts of either asymptomatic patients undergoing cardiac screening4,5, or elevated-risk patients either after an acute coronary syndrome, or with the presence of high risk coronary plaque characteristics6. EAT is best evaluated by volumetric measurement on computed tomography (EAT)7, a non-invasive radiography modality designed for use in low-intermediate risk symptomatic patients. As EAT is universal to human anatomy, it is important to evaluate its natural evolution in this cohort to better understand what cardiovascular risk factors may influence its change, as it thus far remains simply an associative marker of cardiac risk that is thought to be modulated by other metabolic markers or obesity measures. As EAT has been increasingly described as a marker of adipose tissue activity and inflammation which can be gauged by the attenuation of fat, the density of EAT is also of interest to investigate as an alternative marker of risk beyond the total volume of EAT alone8. The long-term natural history of EAT has not been assessed in general cohorts of suspected coronary artery disease that comprise the vast majority of patients undergoing coronary assessment on CT coronary angiography, most of whom will have non-obstructive CAD9.
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