Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

Product Information

The organisers of the Women’s March sought to invoke the authority of those at the bottom of the pile. 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. Holland claims that the multiple injustices suffered by marginalised individuals in recent years has created an awakening which has its origins in Christianity. Dominion is full of martyrs and saints who bear testimony to the power of the Christian message to inspire love of one’s fellow man and woman, including charitable and selfless acts.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Tom Holland has previously written several historical studies on Rome, Greece, Persia and Islam, including Rubicon, Persian Fire, and In the Shadow of the Sword. Samuel Moyn, writing for the Financial Times, similarly stated that "Holland shines in his panoramic survey of how disruptive Christianity was for the ethical and political assumptions that preceded it", though also criticizing how "the illustration of the conquest of the west by Christianity risks becoming so total that it explains everything and nothing. lyrical, vivid * Evening Standard * It's not often that you come across a book that completely transforms your understanding of the world * Spectator * A rich and compelling history of Christendom . Certainly those readers who are already predisposed against Christianity will and indeed have been particularly critical on this score.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. Yet this may actually be the book for you; the modern secular world many have unshackled itself from Christendom. Holland might also have pointed out that the ancient Romans reserved crucifixion mostly for political rebels. Despite these omissions, Dominion packs an astonishing amount of stuff into its 500 pages on Christianity’s enduring influence.

Really interesting how Tom Holland details the rise of Christianity from a relatively minor religion to an international faith. As he says, “the trace elements of Christianity continued to infuse people’s morals and presumptions so utterly that many failed even to detect their presence.If great books encourage you to look at the world in an entirely new way, then Dominion is a very great book indeed . Indeed, it could have been expanded to explain how Holland feels about the way he thinks as a non-Christian and how he reconciles that with the work of Nietzsche that he himself has commented on. For Cajetan, the teachings of the Church were universal in their reach; Christianity should be imposed not by force but solely by persuasion; that neither kings nor emperors nor the Church itself had any right to ordain their conquest.

C. Grayling has rejected Holland's interpretation of Christianity's influence on modern morality, [21] [22] meeting Tom Holland for debate on the subject. Yet Holland is surely right to argue that when we condemn the moral obscenities committed in the name of Christ, it is hard to do so without implicitly invoking his own teaching. Homosexuals might be no less familiar with “the noblest inspirations of the heart” than any married couple. What results is a controversial and persuasive historic narrative of Christianity and Christian theology brought home to Holland’s key themes that are generally not associated with Christianity.

This time the author takes on the very broad concept of Western thought and culture and how it has been influenced by Christian values. Apart from providing a brilliant history of Christianity in the first part, the book essentially demonstrates that common liberal and secular values of human rights owe a lot to Christianity and that these are extensions of the religion. When clergymen both black and white quoting the Africaaners most admired clergyman, that no possible backing for racial segregation was to be found in his writings but just the opposite, a hammer blow was dealt to the apartheid regime. Holland further argues that concepts now usually considered non-religious or universal, such as secularism, liberalism, science, socialism and Marxism, revolution, feminism, and even homosexuality, "are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed", [6] [7] [8] and that the influence of Christianity on Western civilization has been so complete "that it has come to be hidden from view".

Photograph: Philippe Sauvan-Magnet/Active Museum/Alamy View image in fullscreen A terrible death: 15th-century painting of the crucifixion by Sano di Pietro.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. So profound has been the impact of Christianity on the development of Western civilisation that it has come to be hidden from view. Throughout Holland manages to avoid superficiality as much as possible for a book of popular history and introduces some bona fide theological concepts and crucial ideas. 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.