Synopses & Reviews
The National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of The Reformation returns with the definitive history of Christianity for our time Once in a generation a historian will redefine his field, producing a book that demands to be read-a product of electrifying scholarship conveyed with commanding skill. Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity is such a book. Breathtaking in ambition, it ranges back to the origins of the Hebrew Bible and covers the world, following the three main strands of the Christian faith.
Christianity will teach modern readers things that have been lost in time about how Jesus' message spread and how the New Testament was formed. We follow the Christian story to all corners of the globe, filling in often neglected accounts of conversions and confrontations in Africa and Asia. And we discover the roots of the faith that galvanized America, charting the rise of the evangelical movement from its origins in Germany and England. This book encompasses all of intellectual history-we meet monks and crusaders, heretics and saints, slave traders and abolitionists, and discover Christianity's essential role in driving the enlightenment and the age of exploration, and shaping the course of World War I and World War II.
We are living in a time of tremendous religious awareness, when both believers and non-believers are deeply engaged by questions of religion and tradition, seeking to understand the violence sometimes perpetrated in the name of God. The son of an Anglican clergyman, MacCulloch writes with deep feeling about faith. His last book, The Reformation, was chosen by dozens of publications as Best Book of the Year and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. This awe-inspiring follow-up is a landmark new history of the faith that continues to shape the world.
Review
"A landmark contribution ... It is difficult to imagine a more comprehensive and surprisingly accessible volume than MacCulloch's."
-Jon Meacham, The New York Times Book Review
"A well-informed and - bless the man - witty narrative guaranteed to please and at the same time displease every single reader, if hardly in identical measure.... The author's prose style is fluent, well-judged and wholly free of cant ... You will shut this large book with gratitude for a long and stimulating journey."
-The Washington Times
"A prodigious, thrilling, masterclass of a history book. MacCulloch is to be congratulated for his accessible handling of so much complex, difficult material ... He keeps the reader engaged with wit and choice anecdotes and throughout the entire book he retains his own distinctive, slightly irreverent perspective, and an unerring instinct for when to go from macro to micro history."
-John Cornwell, Financial Times
"He brings an insider's wit to tracing the fate of official Christianity in an age of doubt, and to addressing modern surges of zeal, from Mormons to Pentecostals."
-Economist
"A triumphantly executed achievement. This book is a landmark in its field, astonishing in its range, compulsively readable, full of insight even for the most jaded professional and of illumination for the interested general reader. It will have few, if any, rivals in the English language."
-Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
"Christianity is a tour de force: it has enormous range, is gracefully and wittily written, and from page one holds the attention. Everyone who reads it will learn things they didn't know."
-Eamon Duffy, author of Saints and Sinners
"The great strength of the book is that it covers, in sufficient but not oppressive detail, huge areas of Christian history which are dealt with cursorily in traditional accounts of the subject and are unfamiliar to most English-speaking readers ... His analysis of why Christianity has taken root in Korea but made such a hash in India is perceptive and his account of the nineteenth-century missions in Africa and the Pacific is first-rate and full of insight."
-Paul Johnson, author of The Quest for God
Review
and#8220;Magisterial and authoritative.and#8221;
and#8212;The Economist
and#8220;A tour de force of scholarship that begins with a gradual and accessible buildup and then descends, like the century, into a convulsion of dynastic entanglements.and#8221;
and#8212; Kirkus Reviews
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and#8220;Offers insight into the extraordinary turmoil that the average European endured in an era typically described through reverent admiration for art, architecture, and intellectual development. Using the histories of well-chosen cities and countries as examples for each discussion, Greengrass reveals that it was and#8216;curiosity [that] destroyed Christendom.and#8217;and#8221;
and#160;and#8212;Publisherand#8217;s Weekly
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and#160;and#8220;The product of a high standard of creative historical scholarship founded on years of study of archival and literary evidence by a much respected observer of the sixteenth-century scene.... It is Mark Greengrassand#8217; achievement to have imposed upon his subject a sense of order which draws the reader alongand#8230;. It is characteristics such as these which earn the book the five stars which it surely deserves.and#8221;
and#8212; Christopher Allmand, The Tablet (UK)
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and#8220;A model of scholarly dedication. It makes heavy demands of the general reader.... Almost every page has a memorable nugget, from the invention of the world atlas to the scatological sermons of Martin Luther.and#8221;
and#8212; Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times (UK)
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and#8220;[Greengrass] writes with clarity and vigour, in a highly engaging style, and his book is as full of fascinating nuggets as it is of wise judgements.... Greengrass succeeds brilliantly in bringing to life a vanished world.and#8221;
and#160;and#8212;Peter Marshall, Literary Review (UK)
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and#8220;A magnificent achievement. Engagingly written, remarkably comprehensive in scope, impeccable in its scholarship, it should find a wide readership which will be rewarded with a new understanding of one of the most decisive eras in European history.and#8221;
and#8212;Robert A. Schneider, Professor of History, Indiana University
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and#8220;Mark Greengrass is a leading authority on early modern Europe, and heand#8217;s written an extraordinary book, one that combines learning, imagination, and insight. This is history that takes seriously our twenty-first century questions about what Europe is and where it fits in the larger world.and#8221;
and#8212;Jonathan Dewald, University at Buffalo, State University of New York
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and#8220;Composed in four countries (three of them in the European Union), Mark Greengrassand#8217;s contribution to this series offers an unusually wide-angled panorama of European history from Luther to the Peace of Westphalia, seasoned with a plethora of richly-illustrative and often unfamiliar illustrations.and#8221;
and#8212;William Monter, Professor of History, Northwestern University
Synopsis
An innovative and intriguing look at the foundations of Western civilization from two leading historians. The influence of ancient Greece and Rome can be seen in every aspect of our lives. From calendars to democracy to the very languages we speak, Western civilization owes a debt to these classical societies. Yet the Greeks and Romans did not emerge fully formed; their culture grew from an active engagement with a deeper past, drawing on ancient myths and figures to shape vibrant civilizations.
In The Birth of Classical Europe, the latest entry in the Penguin History of Europe, historians Simon Price and Peter Thonemann present a fresh perspective on classical culture in a book full of revelations about civilizations we thought we knew. In this impeccably researched and immensely readable history we see the ancient world unfold before us, with its grand cast of characters stretching from the great Greeks of myth to the world-shaping Caesars. A landmark achievement, The Birth of Classical Europe provides insight into an epoch that is both incredibly foreign and surprisingly familiar.
Synopsis
A new understanding of one of the most decisive eras in European history, captured in extraordinary detail by a renowned scholar and#160;
The latest addition to the landmark Penguin History of Europe series is a fascinating study of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, when dramatic changes led to the collapse of Christendomand#151;a millennium in the makingand#151;and established the geographical and political frameworks of Western Europe as we know it.
From peasants to princes, no one was untouched by the spiritual and intellectual upheaval of this era. Martin Lutherand#8217;s challenge to church authorityand#160;forced Christians to examine their beliefs in ways that shook the foundations of their religion. Geographical and scientific discoveries undermined the unity of Christendom as a belief community.and#160;In its place, Europeand#151;modern, divided, frequently at war with itselfand#151;emerged as a collection of nation-states. Thomas More, Shakespeare, Montaigne, and Cervantes chronicled these changes in works that continue to resonate with us. Addressing all this and more,and#160;Christendom Destroyedand#160;is award-winning historian Mark Greengrassand#8217;s magnum opus: a rich tapestry that fosters a deeper understanding of Europeand#8217;s identity today.
About the Author
Diarmaid MacCulloch is a fellow of St. Cross College, Oxford, and professor of the history of the church at Oxford University. His books include Suffolk and the Tudors, winner of the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize, and Thomas Cranmer: A Life, which won the Whitbread Biography Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, and the Duff Cooper Prize. A former Anglican deacon, he has presented many highly celebrated documentaries for television and radio, and was knighted in 2012 for his services to scholarship. He lives in Oxford, England.