Pattern of the Past

* Book: The Pattern of the Past. Piritim Sorokin and Pieter Geyl.

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Summary

Richard Simpson:

"In The Pattern of the Past (1949) Sorokin and Pieter Geyl, a Dutch historian, criticize Professor Arnold J. Toynbee's views on the rise and fall of civilizations. Sorokin's chief argument is that the civilization, as Toynbee conceives it, is not the proper unit of study. Toynbee, like the functional anthropologists (says Sorokin), wrongly assumes that a civilization is an integrated system without congeries elements."

(https://www.suz.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-36d7-41d4-0000-000064b51e55/simpson_sorokin.pdf)