One of the most remarkable thinkers of this century, Arnold Toynbee won world-wide recognition as the author of the monumental ten-volume A Study of History. Its publication and phenomenal success brought him fame and the highest praise, as the reading public proclaimed him the most renowned scholar in the world. This thought-provoking, engaging study of Toynbee, written by one of today's most eminent historians, weaves together Toynee's intellectual accomplishments and the personal difficulties of his private life. Providing both an intimate portrait of a leading thinker and a judicious evaluation of his work and his legacy for the the study of history, William H. McNeill offers both a biography and a commentary on how to write and understand history. Along with an illuminating discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of A Study of History and the countless other works written by Toynbee, McNeill offers a compelling examination of the responses of other historians (including the devastating attack launched by Hugh Trevor-Roper) and Toynbee's attempts to modify his Study to answer these criticisms. McNeill also explores his tormented personal life, including his troubled marriage to Rosalind Murray and the suicide of his son, Anthony. In this sympathetic depiction of a life, both triumphant and tragic, McNeill brings his skills to bear on one of the greatest figures in his field, illuminating a career of rare accomplishment.

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In this important new book, Paul T. Phillips argues that most professional historians – aside from a relatively small number devoted to theory and methodology – have concerned themselves with particular, specialized areas of research, thereby ignoring the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning. This is less so in the thriving general community of history enthusiasts beyond academia, and may explain, in part at least, history’s sharp decline as a subject of choice by students in recent years. Phillips sees great dangers resulting from the thinking of extreme relativists and postmodernists on the futility of attaining historical truth, especially in the age of "post-truth." He also believes that moral judgment and the search for meaning in history should be considered part of the discipline’s mandate. In each section of this study, Phillips outlines the nature of individual issues and past efforts to address them, including approaches derived from other disciplines. This book is a call to action for all those engaged in the study of history to direct more attention to the fundamental questions of truth, morality, and meaning.

Winner of the 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award In The Dispersion, Stéphane Dufoix skillfully traces how the word “diaspora”, first coined in the third century BCE, has, over the past three decades, developed into a contemporary concept often considered to be ideally suited to grasping the complexities of our current world. Spanning two millennia, from the Septuagint to the emergence of Zionism, from early Christianity to the Moravians, from slavery to the defence of the Black cause, from its first scholarly uses to academic ubiquity, from the early negative connotations of the term to its contemporary apotheosis, Stéphane Dufoix explores the historical socio-semantics of a word that, perhaps paradoxically, has entered the vernacular while remaining poorly understood.

" ... Examines the thoughts and actions of some of Canada's intellectual elite--a circle that radiates from the revered philosopher of Canadian nationalism, George Grant, who died in 1988. What emerges ... is an insidious antisemitism and intolerance."--Page 2 of cover.

Presents the first systematic and cross-cultural examination of ideas of orthodoxy and heresy in a group of major religious traditions.