Welsh Journals

beginnings to the late 1980s. It gives a rounded and comprehensive account of Wales, divided into ten chapters, six before 1770, and four afterwards, though as far as its content is concerned it is divided almost equally into two halves, the first covering the centuries before the Industrial Revolution, and the other the last two centuries. A vast amount of intelligent scholarship has gone into the planning and preparation of the book, which is written in a highly readable, pungent and witty style. Though there may be differences about some of Dr. Davies's conclusions, no one can doubt the enthusiasm or the sincerity of his reading of the Welsh past. The book should be a godsend not merely to schools, colleges and professional historians, but also to any intelligent layman with an iota of interest in his country and its history. An English translation of it will be eagerly awaited.) GLANMOR WILLIAMS Abertawe A STUDY OF HISTORY: THE ONE-VOLUME EDITION, ILLUSTRATED. By Arnold Toynbee. Thames and Hudson, 1988. Pp. 576. £ 14.95. The first three volumes of A Study of History were published in 1934 and another three in 1939; the original scheme was completed by four more in 1954, and supplemented by a volume of maps (1959) and another of Reconsiderations (1961). The present abridgement (as distinct from the one by D. C. Somervell) was prepared by the author and first published in 1972, three years before his death. Since Toynbee began work on it in 1920 (though, he mentions elsewhere, he began making notes for it only in 1927), this final version represents an evolution over more than half a century, whose vicissitudes Toynbee, already a classicist of great distinction, chronicled in his capacity as director of Chatham House, producing that body's annual Survey of International Affairs between 1925 and 1946. He possessed an extraordinary range of erudition, especially in the ancient civilizations of the world, and superabundant intellectual energy and confidence. These are impressive qualifications even for the author of one of the most discussed and (especially given its bulk) widely circulated historical works of the century; whether so widely read must be another question, though those who approach it now for the first time will find, and may sometimes be surprised by, the genesis of many phrases that have entered the dictionary of historical clichés­)chaIlenge and response', 'times of troubles', and so on. Together with the visual appeal of the splendid and appropriate illustrations (chosen by Jane Caplan), they constitute a seductive plea for a sympathetic reception from a generation which for the most part (and including this reviewer) knows Toynbee only as the object of the dismissive scorn of the post-war historical establishment. Alas, whatever we may think of our seniors in other respects, they got this one nght. In the first place, this is not, and never was, a historical work at all, if that description is taken to imply an attempt at the rational or systematic understanding of