Headline November 16, 2018/ '' ' HISTORY QUERY HONORS ' ''

'' ' HISTORY QUERY HONORS ' ''

THE QUERY ABOUT the relevance of historians like Edward Gibbons [1737-1794] and Arnold Toynbee [1184-1975], who-

Who produced monumental works of history, to the trends represented in the current historical scholarship nudges one into serious reflection.

This hearkened back to years, when, as a young historian, I was striving hard to make sense of these scholars and the ideas they professed and stood for..

That was the time when I was working on my first book The Idea of History Through Ages and has set a task for myself to write critical accounts on both of them.

Both are immensely important and relevant of  the current scholarship on history as well as  other branches of human sciences. Such categories like empire and civilization have bounced back in contemporary analysis.

Thus not even a slightest of doubt can be cast on the relevance of scholarship built around  these categories. What, however, caught my immediate attention was  the divergence in the focus of their respective areas.

Therefore, in this publishing, I will try to bring out the differences as well as similarities in the works of these two.

Gibbon wrote The Decline and Fall of Roman Empire in 6 volumes.

Toynbee's work The Study of History comprised 12 volumes. While carrying out that study on various big historians and thinkers on history, I came across not only temporal but also ideational  differences between these two.

The difference between them seemed to me far too glaring to bracket them in a single category of  historians.

For Gibbon 'Empire' was the fundamental  unit of historical study whereas Toynbee underscored  'civilisation' as a 'species of society'; therefore, he considered it as proper unit of historical study.

Despite this, at both conceptual as well as practical levels nation state and parliamentary democracy had been firmly established by the  concluding years of 18th century. But Gibbon was still under the spell of grandeur that Roman Empire had cast on the European intelligentsia.

Quite conversely, when Toynbee was at Oxford [Balliol College], civilization was being projected as a relevant category of historical analysis, with Europe and even England as the fourth head of the world civilization.

Thus, Toynbee vicariously lent support to the British agenda of  imperialism.

Both scholars perceived England as far bigger entity than merely a nation state.

Gibbon exhibited irreverence to Christianity and considered it as the result of the fall of the Roman Empire but quiet conversely Toynbee attached considerable importance to his religion and hoped its rejuvenation in not too distant a future.

For Toynbee Universal Church through its moral and spiritual power would be the creator of a new new civilization. Because of this unorthodox views about Christianity, Gibbon in his lifetime and after was cursed at and personally ridiculed by those who feared that his skepticism would shake the existing establishment.

However, both had commonalities too. Like Gibbon, Toynbee went to Oxford though in different colleges. Both had mastered  several languages  and brought those languages into a profitable use in their respective works  of scholarship.

The Honor and Serving of the latest Operational Research on History, Historians and Great thinkers continues. The World Students Society thanks author, researcher and writer  Tahir Kamran.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professor and Teachers of the world. See Ya all  prepare for  Global  Elections  and  ''register'' on : wssciw.blogspot.com - The World Students Society and Twitter- !E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:


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