A world safe for empires? A. J. Toynbee and the internationalization of self-determination in the East (1912–1922). (4th July 2021) - Giannakopoulos, Georgios
ABSTRACT: The article excavates the early international thought of the British historian and expert on international affairs Arnold J. Toynbee. It focuses on Toynbee's shifting views on nationality, internationalism and imperialism during a decade of global war and conflict. Toynbee understood national questions as imperial problems requiring solutions and in the immediate aftermath of the Great War he was among the first to systematically reflect on the diffusion of nationalism in the East. The article argues that the evolution of Toynbee's thinking on the question of self-determination can be seen a response to debates on imperial reform and to challenges stemming from rival, non-western traditions of thinking on self-determination. Furthermore, the reconstruction of Toynbee's thought challenges linear accounts of his engagement with nationalism in terms of enchantment and disenchantment with the principle of national self-determination and makes manifest the intricate links between nationality, liberal internationalism and imperial order in British commentary on the near and middle east.