From the author of a pretentious Study of History in ten volumes we naturally expect something more than appreciative notes on sunrises and mountains and temples, and Mr. Toynbee endeavors to answer our expectations. He is undoubtedly a man of wide learning, an historian who can give us a thumbnail sketch of the Akkadian-Assyrian culture at the wiggle of a Super-Constellation’s wings. He doubtless speaks with authority when he assures us that the architecture of Hindu temples is based on the Buddhist stupa rather than the Babylonian ziggurat. But he can also give his admirers some very trying moments. Indeed, readers who are not overawed by the bulk of the famous ten volumes may wonder whether anyone who has even a modest understanding of history would permit himself complacently to remark that in Vietnam, at least, “The Roman Catholic Church . . . has successfully shaken off its transitory association with the Western World.” (My italics.)
In the course of his tour Mr. Toynbee, resolutely presenting an Open Mind to all the winds of Oriental doctrine, admired the “spiritual light that is radiating from the minds” of the natives of Burma, where at any moment “a mob of [Buddhist] monks
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