August 19, 2019
Novelist, playwright, and historian Holland (Rubicon), whose scholarly pursuits include Greek, Islamic, and Roman history, brings all of that to bear in this cultural history of how “a cult inspired by the execution of an obscure criminal in a long-vanquished empire came to exercise such a transformative and enduring influence on the world.” In the period stretching from pre-Christian Athens in 479 BCE, when the Persian Artayctes lost his battle with the Athenians, to Germany in 2015, when Angela Merkel had an emotional encounter with a teenage Palestinian girl, Holland traces Christendom’s philosophical, ethical, political, and even linguistic legacies in the West. Sophocles and Aristotle appear, as do Solomon and Moses, who “brought something without parallel: legislation directly authored by a god.” Luke writes, so does Muhammad, and Luther publishes his 95 theses; later Holland weaves in Voltaire, Darwin, and even de Sade. He does not lose sight of political events—Charlemagne reigns, Columbus sails, the West fights WWI, and Hitler rises to power. He also wrestles with the theological disputes, inconsistencies, and recurring questions within Christianity, and the faith’s intertwined but often hostile relationship with Judaism and Jews. Entertaining is too light a term and instructive is too heavy a term for a rich work that is enjoyably both.
Starred review from September 1, 2019
Independent scholar and award-winning author Holland (Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic) asserts in this engaging work that most of Western morals and ethics find their origin in Christianity, even where the influence is unacknowledged. Rather than offer a continuous narrative, Holland takes key moments in history and illuminates the role Christianity played in these epochal periods, both for good and for ill. Connecting topics and time periods--e.g., "Belief: AD 177: Lyon," about the struggle to define Christian doctrine; and "Love: 1967: Abbey Road," which speaks of the Christian origins of the love and peace movement of the 1960s, even as many of those promoting the movement rejected religious belief--Holland exhibits a wide and deep historical knowledge, placing each of these periods in the context of Christian and Western history. Each chapter begins with a telling vignette that illustrates the topic, as Holland then shows how this event mirrored those in other places. VERDICT Even readers who might not agree with Holland's thesis will enjoy his take on key periods of Western history.--Augustine J. Curley, Newark Abbey, NJ
Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
November 15, 2019
Christianity is said to draw about equally on classical Greece (Plato, Aristotle) and the Hebrew Bible for its philosophical foundations, so it's unsurprising that broadcaster and author Holland (In The Shadow of the Sword, 2012) starts this slices-of-history book in Athens, then continues in Jerusalem, centuries and decades, respectively, before Christ. The events in those chapters, as in their 19 successors, attest to Christian ideas and principles in ferment among historical actors. Notions such as the creation of the universe by a single creator, the absolute integrity of the individual, the distinct though overlapping authorities of church and state, constant improvement of persons and institutions, among others, affected, to the point of determining, the tendencies and outcomes of historical developments as the ages rolled by. How these ideas affected the practices of slavery, freedom of expression, and political and social rights, and altered the tenor of the times as recently as the 1960s are the meat of Holland's flowing expository style, which resembles the narration of a very engaging broadcast documentary.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)
Starred review from August 1, 2019
Christianity may not be on the march, but its principles continue to dominate in much of the world; this thoughtful, astute account describes how and why. This is not a biography of Jesus or a history of the church, writes Holland (Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar, 2015, etc.), an award-winning historian of the ancient world. His aim is to "study Christianity for what it can reveal, not about God, but about the affairs of humanity. No less than any other aspect of culture and society, beliefs are presumed to be of mortal origin, and shaped by the passage of time." He accomplishes this with 21 isolated chapters (in three parts: "Antiquity," "Christendom," and "Modernitas") that proceed chronologically, beginning when the ancient world, which featured a live-and-let-live attitude toward the gods of every nation, became aware of the Jewish God, who insisted that He reigned alone. Leaping forward centuries and then decades at a time, Holland delivers penetrating, often jolting discussions on great controversies of Western civilization in which war, politics, and culture have formed a background to changes in values. Thus, Christ taught that slavery was offensive in God's eyes. Christians accepted this idea until they became the establishment, when practicalities took priority. Radical Christians fumed and skeptics sneered, but the author points out that when abolition finally became a political force in the 18th century, it was almost entirely Christian based, and no other world religion participated. So it has been with issues from women's rights to genocide to evolution, and Holland looks at the work of Julian the Apostate, Mohammad, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Hitler, and countless other relevant historical figures. Readers may squirm, but even a humane concept such as human rights "was far likelier to be signed up to if its origin among the canon lawyers of medieval Europe could be kept concealed." An insightful argument that Christian ethics, even when ignored, are the norm worldwide.
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