MacCulloch - Christianity: the first three thousand years

Praise for Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch

It is difficult to imagine a more comprehensive and surprisingly accessible volume on the subject than MacCullochs. This is not a book to be taken lightly. To me its appeal lies in its illuminating explications of things so apparently obvious that they would seem to require no explanation.

Jon Meacham, The New York Times Book Review

A tour de force. The most brilliant point of this remarkable book is its identification of the U.S. as the prime example of the kind of nation the reformers hoped to create.

Paul Johnson, The Spectator

This ambitious project represents the first attempt in decades by a major historian of ChristianityMacCulloch is professor of the History of the Church at Oxfordto craft a one-volume narrative of the faith from its origin to the present. The engaging narrative and incisive analysis for which he is renowned make this work an essential companion for any student of Christianity.

Commonweal

At a time when quarrels between believers and nonbelievers, new atheists and old faithfuls, dominate so much of our public discourse, Diarmaid MacCulloch has given us the one thing that we most neednot polemic but history, high, wide and lucid, and, given the enormity of his task, often winningly light of touch. Taking as his subject nothing less than the whole history of the faith, he has written a social history that illuminates changes in belief; and a history of belief that helps us see how our society got so much of its structure. Throughout he achieves a near-perfect match of narrative flair and analytic detail. In the best old-fashioned, classical sense, we are offered here a pageant of people and events. [He] reminds us that history matters.

Adam Gopnik, bestselling author of Paris to the Moon and judge of the 2010 Cundill Prize in History

He brings an insiders wit to tracing the fate of official Christianity in an age of doubt, and to addressing modern surges of zeal, from Mormons to Pentecostals.

The Economist

Where does Christianity begin? In Athens, Jerusalem, or Rome? How did the early creeds of the church develop and differentiate? What was the impact of the Reformation and the Catholic Counterreformation? How have vital Christian communities emerged in Asia, Africa, and India since the eighteenth century? Award-winning historian MacCulloch attempts to answer these questions and many more in this elegantly written, magisterial history of Christianity. He offers sketches of Christian thinkers from Augustine and Luther to Desmond Tutu. His monumental achievement will not soon be surpassed.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A prodigious, thrilling, masterclass of a history book. MacCulloch is to be congratulated for his accessible handling of so much complex, difficult material. He keeps the reader engaged with wit and choice anecdotes and throughout the entire book he retains his own distinctive, slightly irreverent perspective, and an unerring instinct for when to go from macro to micro history.

John Cornwell, Financial Times

A triumphantly executed achievement. This book is a landmark in its field, astonishing in its range, compulsively readable, full of insight even for the most jaded professional and of illumination for the interested general reader. It will have few, if any, rivals in the English language.

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury

[MacCullochs] writing is brilliant, critical, inspiring, humorous.

Brother Curtis, The Society of Saint John the Evangelist

Excellent I suspect it will quickly become the go-to book for those seeking information on this major world religion.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Diarmaid MacCullochs splendid account of Christianitys long, momentous, non-ignorable life among us is in one way an account of everything that has gone on during the three millennia in which he sets his story. A well-informed andbless the manwitty narrative, fluent, well-judged and wholly free of cant. Christianity, the book, is more than informative, more than measured and temperate. Its enjoyablea jolly good read.

The Washington Times

I heartily recommend Christianity to anyone with an interest in the history of the Church. The book is very accessible and readable. Both the novice and the expert should find it profitable. Believers will find challenges which we should be willing to face, and which should be a catalyst for some appropriate soul-searching. Cynics may just find some things that might make them willing to open up a dialog with the Faithful.

HollywoodJesus.com

Diarmaid MacCullochs monumental book is essential reading for those enthralled by Christianity and for those enraged by it, while those who protest indifference may be ambushed by surprise at its force in world culture over the millenniums.

Melvyn Bragg, The Observer, choosing Christianity as Book of the Year

PENGUIN BOOKS
CHRISTIANITY

DIARMAID MACCULLOCH is the author of The Reformation, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Wolfson Prize, and the British Academy Prize, and of Thomas Cranmer, winner of the Whitbread Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, and the Duff Cooper Prize. Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University, he was brought up in a country rectory in East Anglia and now lives in Oxford, England.

DIARMAID M AC CULLOCH

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2010
Published in Penguin Books 2011

Copyright Diarmaid MacCulloch, 2009

All rights reserved

Published in Great Britain as A History of Christianity by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd.

Illustration credits appear on pages xixiv.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS :

MacCulloch, Diarmaid.

Christianity: the first three thousand years / Dairmaid MacCulloch.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-1-101-18999-3

1. Church history. I. Title.

BR145.3.M33 2010

270-dc22

2009040184

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.