"A Study Of History" by Arnold J.Toynbee

Introduction

Arnold J. Toynbee ("A Study of History") describes the 'Disintegrations of Civilizations ' in Part V of his XIII part opus in terms that can be related to Strauss & Howe's book. The noted social scientist? Charles Murray? writes ("Prole Models?" The Wall Street Journal? 2/6/01) that American culture has entered a state of vulgarization and depravity that was precisely described by Toynbee as characteristic of a civilization in a state of disintegration.

Toynbee described this situation in his chapter on 'Schism of the Soul.' In his "Cycle of War and Peace?" Toynbee identified and dated five repetitions of a [cycle of war]? each initiated by the most decisive war of its century. In addition to five modern centuries? Toynbee identified similar cycles spanning six centuries of ancient Chinese and Hellenistic histories? all situated in what he called 'break-up' eras of great civilizations. He found the span of time between the start of one general war to the start of the next to have averaged ninety-five years with a 'surprising degree of coincidence.'

Discussion

The historian Arnold Toynbee discussed the existence of one hundred year cycles of war and peace. The leading proponents of this cyclic view of war today are the political scientists George Modelski and William Thompson. Modelski and Thompson stress naval power (and its modern extension? carrier-based airpower) as the key military underpinning of world political leadership. Their choice of successive world leaders: Portugal? the Netherlands? Britain and the United States reflect this bias. All four of these nations projected military power over a world-girdling trading empire through a first rank navy.

As I noted? the current debate grow s out of the confluence of Toynbee's long war cycle and Organski's theory of military challenges to the hierarchical world order . In the current debate? as in the long wav e debate? three theoretical groupings? or research schools? have developed. One school is descended from Toynbee and Wright? with the incorporation of Organski's and Farrar's influence. This is the current leadership cycle school? led by Modelski. A second school? led by Wallerstein? is the world-system school? which has engaged the Toynbee/Organski problem of war and hegemony from a Marxist perspective. This school has interacted? but not agreed? with the leadership cycle school. The third school? shown at the right? is the power transition school? growing out of Organski's approach.

Each current research tradition grows out of a more general approach to international relations peace research? neo-Marxism? and realism? respectively. And these three approaches in turn correspond roughly with the three world views (liberal? revolutionary? and conservative) discussed in chapter 1 . In general? the peace research approach is oriented toward the quantitative and qualitative study o f war to understand its causes and bring about its reduction. The neo-Marxist approach emphasizes the importance of the world-system structured by the inequality (and unequal dependency) between core and periphery and seeks to change the underlying socioeconomic context that leads to war. The realist approach focuses on national power ...