MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF THE WORK AND THOUGHT
OF ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE
by Teodoro Tagliaferri (University of Naples Federico II)
No. 14 (January 14th, 2023)
WRITINGS ON THE EMPIRES IN WORLD HISTORY, XI
Arnold J. Toynbee, Key to the European Super State. The Commonwealth and the Common Market. Will the United Kingdom’s relationship with the Commonwealth suffer when Britain enters the Common Market? Historian Arnold Toynbee concludes that both the EEC and the Commonwealth are assets which the world cannot afford to lose, in «The Times», October 12, 1971, p. 12.
The article was a review of Britain, the Commonwealth, and Europe, «The Round Table. The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs», Special Issue, LXI, 243 (October 1971).
“Britain is, indeed, distinguished, among the countries of the present-day world, by the number and the variety of her international connexions, and, above all, by the extent of their geographical range. This is partly due to Britain’s present role in the life of the world, but it is also partly a legacy from the past. During the half-century 1815-65 Britain was not only a super-power; she was the super-power. She was the hub of an embryonic world-order. Her “Black Country” was “the workshop of the world”; the City of London financed the worId’s business; the British Navy commanded and policed the world’s seas. Britain’s extraordinary monopoly of financial and naval power was bound to be ephemeral.”
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