Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

Product Information

In one particularly provocative take on the book, the historian Jonathan Sumption suggests that far from Christianity being fundamental to, as the subtitle says, it is in fact a product of that mind. The concept of human rights and equality, as well as solidarity with the weak against the strong, Holland argues, ultimately derive from the theology built on the teachings of Jesus and Paul the Apostle. Kinship and blood ties no longer matter, and Jesus’s treatment of his mother is by no means always that of a good Jewish boy. Would he overcome his fairly superficial childhood objections to religion based on dinosaurs and join his godmother?

It is an argument that doesn't seem too controversial once it is pointed out, but it does indeed need to be pointed out and some of the implications, as discussed in the book, are fascinating if for no other reason than that they make evident that what we might take for granted are not as axiomatic as we might assume.Terrific: bold, ambitious and passionate -- Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads Tom Holland is fun to read, monstrously erudite, wickedly joyful, and ahead of the established consensus, on average, by four years, three months, and two days -- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the Incerto (The Black Swan, Antifragile. In this way, both Catholics and atheists might together critique Holland and perhaps mischievously suggest that he is being influenced by his own Protestant background? We stand at the end-point of an extraordinary transformation in the understanding of what it is to be human: one that can only be fully appreciated by tracing the arc of its parabola over millennia. Yet what distinguishes the Judeo-Christian idea of love from the romantic, erotic, touchy-feely sense it has acquired in modern times is that it has nothing to do with feeling. The progressive Christian message that it was unacceptable to discriminate on the basis of colour raises the question of gay and homosexual relations.

When Caravaggio depicted the first pope, St Peter, he didn’t represent pomp but the indignity of his upside-down crucifixion. Ranging in time from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC to the on-going migration crisis in Europe today, and from Nebuchadnezzar to the Beatles, it will explore just what it was that made Christianity so revolutionary and disruptive; how completely it came to saturate the mind-set of Latin Christendom; and why, in a West that has become increasingly doubtful of religion’s claims, so many of its instincts remain irredeemably Christian.Recommended to anyone looking to get a new perspective on how western culture was and continues to be this day shaped by a death of a single man in a rem At first I gave this 3 stars as it was good but a bit all over the place (I had trouble with the jumps in logic throughout), then I thought a bit more about it and I gave it 4 stars as it made a good point and ultimately I agreed with the premise (even as an atheist, this was not difficult). Most interesting to the modern reader is how, towards the end of the book, Holland ties together historic precedents peppered through the book and how seemingly novel and original ideas, such as Communism, are familiar to the reader by the end of the book.

Widen the focus, though, and Christianity’s enduring impact upon the West can be seen in the emergence of much that has traditionally been cast as its nemesis: in science, in secularism, and yes, even in atheism. His bestselling books include Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Persian Fire, which won the Anglo-Hellenic League's Runciman Award; Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom; In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World; Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar; and Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. Photograph: Philippe Sauvan-Magnet/Active Museum/Alamy View image in fullscreen A terrible death: 15th-century painting of the crucifixion by Sano di Pietro. C. Grayling has rejected Holland's interpretation of Christianity's influence on modern morality, [21] [22] meeting Tom Holland for debate on the subject.Written with terrific learning, enthusiasm and good humour, Holland's book is not just supremely provocative, but often very funny * Sunday Times * A bravura swing through centuries of Western European history .

Humanists will not, I think, be gratified to be reminded that “humanism derives ultimately from claims made in the Bible: that humans are made in God’s image; that his Son died equally for everyone; that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. Tom Holland is fun to read, monstrously erudite, wickedly joyful, and ahead of the established consensus, on average, by four years, three months, and two days --Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the Incerto (The Black Swan, Antifragile.

He is haunted by St Paul’s claim that God chose the weak and foolish things of the world to shame the strong, and to drive the point home he might have looked at the beginning of Luke’s gospel. His translation of Herodotus was published in 2013 by Penguin Classics and followed in 2016 by a history of Æthelstan published under the Penguin Monarchs series, and in 2019 Æthelflæd England's Forgotten Founder as a Ladybird Expert Book.