Tom Holland (Tom Holland – About | Hachette UK (tom-holland.org)) is an award-winning historian, biographer and broadcaster. He is the author of Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic (2003), which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Persian Fire (2005), his history of the Graeco-Persian wars, won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006; Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom (2008), is a panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000; In the Shadow of the Sword (2012), covers the collapse of Roman and Persian power in the Near East, and the emergence of Islam; and Dynasty (2015), a portrait of Rome’s first imperial dynasty.
Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age (2023), tells the story of Rome’s golden age – antiquity’s ultimate superpower at the pinnacle of its greatness. He has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for the BBC. His translation of Herodotus was published in 2013 by Penguin Classics. His biography of Æthelstan, the first King of England, was published in 2016 under the Penguin Monarchs series. In 2007, Holland was the winner of the Classical Association prize, awarded to ‘the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome’.
Holland’s 2019 book Dominion tells the story of how Christianity came to have a shaping and dominating influence over The West. The author’s contention is that we are all swimming in Christian waters whether we attend worship services or not, whether we are avowedly Christian believers or not. Even the increasing number in the West today who have abandoned the faith of their forebears, and dismiss all religion as pointless superstition, remain recognisably its heirs.
This is a history book covering 20 centuries and packed with detail, showing the immense erudition of its author. 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 explores just what 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. The aim is twofold: to make the reader appreciate just how novel and uncanny were Christian teachings when they first appeared in the world; and to make ourselves, and all that we take for granted, appear similarly strange in consequence.
There is no shortage of histories of Christianity, each positioned somewhere along the spectrum of outright devotion to scholarly detachment. For example, the much praised ‘A History of Christianity’ by Diarmaid MacCulloch (A History of Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch – Scott’s Book Review (lanark.co.uk)). Tom Holland is advancing a thesis in his offering here whilst being scrupulous in his accuracy and citations as a professional historian. One also detects an impish sense of humour throughout which makes the book enjoyable. This is a superb read and comes highly commended.
Check if this title is in stock at your local library Home | South Lanarkshire Libraries (sllclibrary.co.uk)
Listen to Tom Holland speak in any of his many podcasts and YouTube videos. For example Holland debates with Anthony Grayling about the influence of Christianity here Tom Holland vs AC Grayling • History: Did Christianity give us our human values? (youtube.com)
594 pages in Little, Brown
ISBN 9781408706954
First published 2019
