MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF THE WORK AND THOUGHT
OF ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE
by Teodoro Tagliaferri (University of Naples Federico II)
No. 3 (November 28th, 2021)
WRITINGS ON THE EMPIRES IN WORLD HISTORY, I
Arnold J. Toynbee, The Ottoman Empire in World History, in «Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society. Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Science», XCIX, 3,
June 15, 1955, pp. 119-126. A lecture given at the annual general meeting of the American
Philosophical Society, November 11, 1954. The lecture’s original title was Some Reasons for
the Rise of the Ottoman Empire (Year Book 1973, The American Philosophical Society, 1974,
p. 194).
“The American Philosophical Society has done me a great honor in inviting me to give this
lecture at this year’s meeting. I have been looking forward to this evening ever since I
received the invitation last year. The year 1953 was, of course, the five-hundredth anniversary
of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, and the date 1453 was then much in our minds;
for 1453, like 1066, is one of those celebrated dates that play an academic “confidence trick”.
They have come to sound so significant that we have become accustomed to take their
significance for granted without question.”
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A.J. Toynbee, The Ottoman Empire in World History