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. Jonathan Sumption, writing for The Spectator, opined the book was "sustained with all the breadth, originality and erudition that we have come to associate with Holland’s writing. We are told of Emperor Julian providing an embryonic social welfare state in 362 building on the earlier examples of Basil and Gregory who devoted their lives to the poor with the former establishing what was in effect the first hospital. Social conservatives would claim that they had two thousand years of Christian tradition behind them, but so too did liberals. The canon law argued that a matching principle that the poor had an entitlement to the necessities of life.

According to the author, the book "isn’t a history of Christianity" but "a history of what's been revolutionary and transformative about Christianity: about how Christianity has transformed not just the West, but the entire world.Holland also argues that many of those who clearest recognized the "radical" implications of Christianity, and its departure from earlier morality, were those fundamentally opposed to it – including Friedrich Nietzsche, the Marquis de Sade and the Nazi Party. What this book may do is persuade others to recognise the revolutionary character of the beliefs that our generation is hastening to discard. Followers of Satan around the same time were obliged to suck on the tongue of a giant toad and lick the anus of a black cat. The book is a broad history of the influence of Christianity on the world, focusing on its impact on morality – from its beginnings to the modern day. Holland has all the talents of an accomplished novelist: a gift for narrative, a lively sense of drama and a fine ear for the rhythm of a sentence.

Christ was, of course, a Jew, and the God of Israel has a particular tenderness for the widow and orphan and a terrible wrath against the unjust rich, but what this makes clear is the revolutionary aspect of a worldview which extended to all peoples — slave and free. He describes crucifixion as one of the most terrible deaths one can suffer, which must be true in general but if Jesus really did only spend six hours on the cross, as the New Testament reports, he was luckier than most victims, who thrashed around for days. 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 . It is particularly strong at the beginning, where Tom Holland plays to his strength as a historian with a strong knowledge of the classical period ( I enjoyed his discussion about ancient Persian civilization).

a b "Briefly Noted "A Game of Birds and Wolves," "Dominion," "Interior Chinatown," and "Stateway's Garden. or would he simply shrug his shoulders, agree with Nietzsche, but accept that he is a slave to to his Christian culture?

Stoics were encouraged to perform public duties and Epicureans instructed people how to be happy, but acts of self-sacrifice to help suffering were not recognised by morality or especially admired. a cornucopia of characters and information: almost everyone would learn from it something they didn't know . This time the author takes on the very broad concept of Western thought and culture and how it has been influenced by Christian values. 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.Yet this may actually be the book for you; the modern secular world many have unshackled itself from Christendom. 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. Holland although he does not use the term, describes the social justice theory of “intersectionality” where all the various stratifications in society served to marginalise some more than others. 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 remote backwater of the Roman empire in the year 786 ab urbe condita.