| A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years |  | Author: Diarmaid MacCulloch
Publisher: Allen Lane
Category: Book
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Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 4,330
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 1216
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.7 x 2.8
ISBN: 0713998695
EAN: 9780713998696
ASIN: 0713998695
Publication Date: September 24, 2009
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Product Description
Christianity, one of the world's great religions, has had an incalculable impact on human history. This book describes the main ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organisation and spirituality, how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. It presents the global history of Christianity.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
 An excellent overview November 19, 2009
C. Harris (Birmingham, UK)
123 out of 128 found this review helpful
This book goes with a TV series, but it is not the over-illustrated coffee-table type book you might expect. On the contrary, it is long (1150 pages) and scholarly, though not dauntingly so. The style is readable and engaging, and the book provides an excellent overview of the history of Christianity. It begins with Judaism and Greek philosophy, giving the background to religious thought in the Roman period. It then covers the origins of Christianity, before going on to trace its development and the varying forms it took as it spread over the world. The mainstream of Catholic / Protestant /Orthodox Christianity is well covered, but the book is particularly good on the odd corners of Christianity, such as the sects that took hold in China and India.
The tone is mildly sceptical, but respectful, so believers and non-believers will find nothing to object to, and both will learn much about what Christianity actually is.
Highly recommended.
sceptical yet respectful January 3, 2010
S. K. Lewicki (North Yorkshire, England)
18 out of 19 found this review helpful
Its 1000 pages are probably not for the faint-hearted, but MacCulloch's book obviously will take you much deeper than his recent excellent TV series, and I'm glad I persevered with his book. He is very interesting on the early centuries of Christianity, its links with ideas and philosophies from Greek and Roman times, and its many forms and the way it spread eastwards initially. Certainly he demolished the impression of a Rome-dominated church that many of us may have of pre-Reformation times. For me he explained very clearly many concepts and ideas I'd come across in earlier reading - about heresy, for instance - and showed me many interesting connections and links which had never occurred to me. What came over most strongly, however, for me, was just how quickly the essentials got lost or were overshadowed by sordid politicking and jostling for power and influence by those who found Christianity a convenient tool for advancing themselves. Then when well-meaning people repeatedly tried to re-connect with the roots of the faith, lo and behold, they were heretics!
I know I oversimplify; there's so much in this book that every reader will get something different from it. And ultimately comes the affirmation that there is clearly something in the original message that has led to its survival...
Diamond Diarmaid. September 28, 2009
Paul James Cocksedge (U.K)
164 out of 181 found this review helpful
Breathtaking in its sheer audacity and scope and obviously the product of decades of deep research and learned scholarship this study is likely to become the definitive single volume "History of Christianity" for many years to come.
It covers all the major historical episodes, dates and personalities one would expect to find up to the modern era, from Augustine to Calvin, from 'the Desert Fathers' to the Reformation. MacCullochs history is truelly global in vision, avoiding a narrow eurocentric context, the author does full justice to the developement of the world-wide church; for example those interested in Eastern Orthodoxy (as I am) will find that not only do the major branches of this communion,such as Greece and Russia, recieve the authors full attention and careful research, but also the lesser known communities of the Coptic, Armenian, Serbian and Georgian churches.
Every continent and practically every major country is covered; form the new Evangelical churches in Africa and Latin America to the Dalijt missions of India, to the underground 'House' Movements of China. This is an objective academic study with no Christian gloss or triumphalism and with no appeals to 'Providence' (in this sense it is not a Christian history), that Christianity could look radically different to the shape we see and experience is made emphatically throughout the text, to choose an obvious example; the profound effect of the rise and expansion of Islam on the North African and Asian Churches. Even the "Three Thousand Years" of the subtitle is not ment to be provocative but merely indicates that Diamaird includes in his history chapters on Isreal, Greece and Rome BC,;the three geo-cultural forces that would have the most profound formative influence on the shaping of the new faith.
Richly illustrated with colour plates and with a faultless index and fullsome bibliography, any library, especially academic library, that does not include this volume has a whacking great Black Hole at the centre of its collection! Students will find this book a rich mine of information and essential reference and jumping off point for more specialised study.
A major new BBC series based on this volumes research is to be shown in the Autumn/ Winter 2009.
Worth buying for anyone who has an interest in the history of Christianity March 18, 2010
will1957 (Scotland)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought this book and the accompanying DVD a couple of weeks ago, and have watched the DVD and am now making my way through the book. The DVD and book (so far) complement each other beautifully. The way I am approaching them is that the DVD gives the overview and the book the detail. In addition, having studied aspects of the history of Christianity at university, I have not yet found too much about which to quibble. I think MacCulloch's views on the early controversies and councils are fair and balanced, and I am delighted with his coverage of the Russian and Oriental Orthodox Churches whose contributions are not well known in the West.
I am sure I will find issues in which I disagree with MacCulloch, but that's the nature of historical research and reflection upon it. One reviewer writes of MacCulloch's anti-Catholic bias, but I have not got that far into the book, and may update this review later. However, so far, I think it is a fair and sensitive history of the subject that brings the reader up-to-date with contemporary research.
In short, this book and its accompanying DVD are worth buying for anyone who has an interest in the history of Christianity.
A History of Christianity February 4, 2010
Mrs. P. Madgwick
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Like many people I enjoyed Diarmaid MacCulloch's television programmes, and was left wanting more. This book provides plenty. It has filled in many gaps in my view of history that have been skewed by living in western Europe and being quite ignorant of how other strands of Christianity one occasionally encounters, such as Coptic Christians, fit with the western traditions I know. It is not a quick read, at over 1000 pages, but it is accessible to a non-specialist.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 27
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