Civilization on Trial

by Arnold J. Toynbee

Assigned by 1 of the 9 reading lists, catalogue entry only

Written
1948
Form
Essay
Language
English
Length
Medium · 260 pp120 to 300 pages
Difficulty
Moderate2 of 5 for a first-year reader

We recommendCivilization on TrialOxford University Press, 1948Long out of print; used copies of the Oxford first edition or the later Meridian paperback are easy to find.

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A collection of thirteen lectures and essays from the 1940s in which Toynbee put the ideas of A Study of History to the general reader. He argues that the unification of the world under Western technology and the atomic bomb have put Western civilisation itself on trial, that civilisations die by suicide rather than murder, and that the higher religions, not the civilisations that carried them, are the real subject of history. Essays on Islam, Russia, Greece and Christianity's future are included.

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The catalogue entry above is complete: the dates, the form, the themes and every program that assigns Civilization on Trial are verified against each program's published list.

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civilisations, challenge and response, Western civilisation, atomic age, higher religions, Islam, Russia, Arnold Joseph Toynbee