In support of this view an alleged point is cited from the history of Italy. ［......］.
This racial explanation of Italian history up to the 16th tury of the Christian Era has a superficial plausibility as long as we are tent to stop at that point in time. But if we allow our thoughts to travel on from the 16th tury to the prent day we shall find that, after a further period of de the 17th and 18th turies, Italy was the se, ih tury, of another resurre so dramatic that the name （Risimento） is nolied, without qualification, exclusively to this moderition of a medieval Italian experience. And what infusion of pure barbarian blood had preceded this last outburst of Italian energy? The answer is, of cour, ‘he main immediate cau, historiao agree, of the eeury Italian Risimento was the general shake-up and challenge administered to Italy by the experience of being quered and temporarily ruled by a Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
In support of this view an alleged point is cited from the history of Italy. ［......］.
This racial explanation of Italian history up to the 16th tury of the Christian Era has a superficial plausibility as long as we are tent to stop at that point in time. But if we allow our thoughts to travel on from the 16th tury to the prent day we shall find that, after a further period of de the 17th and 18th turies, Italy was the se, ih tury, of another resurre so dramatic that the name （Risimento） is nolied, without qualification, exclusively to this moderition of a medieval Italian experience. And what infusion of pure barbarian blood had preceded this last outburst of Italian energy? The answer is, of cour, ‘he main immediate cau, historiao agree, of the eeury Italian Risimento was the general shake-up and challenge administered to Italy by the experience of being quered and temporarily ruled by a Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
It is not more difficult to find non-racial explanations for the previous ri of Italy at the beginning of the illennium of the Christian Era, and for her still earlier dee which declared itlf in the cour of the last two turies B.C. This last-mentioned dee was evidently the nemesis of a Roman militarism which brought upon Italy all the appalling train of social evils that followed in the wake of the Hannibalic War. The beginnings of social recovery in Italy, during the post-Helleniterregnum, be traced with equal certainty to the work of creative personalities of the old Italian race, more particularly to Saint Be and to Pope Gregory the Great, who are the fathers not only of the rejuvealy of the Middle Ages but of the new Western Civilization in which the medieval Italians were partits. verly, when we survey the districts of Italy which were overrun by the ‘pure-blooded’ Lombards, we find that the list excludes Venid the Romagna and other districts which play parts ialian Renaissance as distinguished as theirs and far more distinguished than tho played by the cities known to have beeers of Lombard authority: Pavia, Beo and Spoleto. If we wao furbish up a racial explanation of Italian history we could easily submit evidehat Lombard blood had proved a taint rather than an elixir. （pp.249250） （Toynbee, Arnold J. （1974）. A Study of History （Abridgement of Volumes I-VI by D.ervell）. New York, Oxford: Oxford Uy Press.）