(April 14, 1889–October 2, 1975), was a British historian. He studied at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford University, becoming a fellow at Balliol in ancient history. During World War I, he worked for the British government, 1915; the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, 1919; and was a member of the Middle Eastern Section of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. He was appointed Koraes Professor of Byzantine and modern Greek languages, literature, and history at the University of London, 1919; research director on international history, 1925; and director of studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1925. During World War II, he served as director of foreign research ad press service of the Royal Institute, 1939–1943; director of the research department of the Foreign Office, 1943–1946; and was a member of the British delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, 1946.
His works include: A Study of History (vols. 1–6), 1934–1939, 1946; The Western Question in Greece and Turkey, 1922; Greek Civilization and Character, 1924; A Journey to China, 1931; Civilization on Trial, 1948; and World and the West, 1953. He prepared and edited a series of international yearbooks, A Survey of International Affairs, 1924–1946.
On March 30, 1956, as recorded in Collier’s, Arnold Joseph Toynbee stated:
The course of human history consists of a series of encounters between individual human beings and God in which each man or woman or child, in turn, is challenged by God to make his free choice between doing God’s will and refusing to do it.
When Man refuses, he is free to make his refusal and to take the consequences. When Man accepts, his reward for willing what is the will of God is that he finds himself taken by God into a partnership in the doing of God’s creative work.
When Man is thus cooperating with God, Man’s freedom is at its maximum, because Man is then realizing the potentialities for which God has created him. God has created Man to be God’s free partner in the work of creation.3413