“This book remains a classic, easily the most fascinating introduction to the field for anyone new to it, and also capable of forcing experts into taking on new ideas; a summation of Peter Brown’s mould-breaking work.”
―Chris Wickham, University of Oxford
“Interpretations of late antiquity and of western Christendom have changed dramatically in the last decade. This anniversary edition explains the changes with Peter Brown’s characteristic brilliance and range of learning.”
―Gillian Clark, University of Bristol
From the Inside Flap
The publication of this revised edition of a masterwork by Princeton University’s celebrated scholar of late antiquity marks the book’s tenth anniversary. A central volume in the Wiley-Blackwell series The Making of Europe, the book has undergone a thorough redesign and includes a new preface covering academic developments in the last ten years, revised common opinions, a fully updated bibliography, and additional color images. As a superbly realized account of the compelling history of Christianity’s evolution in its tumultuous first millennium, it is the essential general survey of the subject. Brown charts the rise to prominence of a religion that began as an obscure sect in Roman Judaea and developed into Europe’s dominant religious – and political – institution. Christianity played a pivotal role in the making of Europe, as well as the delineation of its boundaries: the political gulf between Europe and its eastern neighbors was also a religious divide. This volume offers students of religious history unmatched depth of analysis by the leading academic authority on the period
From the Back Cover
The publication of this revised edition of a masterwork by Princeton University’s celebrated scholar of late antiquity marks the book’s tenth anniversary. A central volume in the Wiley-Blackwell series The Making of Europe, the book has undergone a thorough redesign and includes a new preface covering academic developments in the last ten years, revised common opinions, a fully updated bibliography, and additional color images. As a superbly realized account of the compelling history of Christianity’s evolution in its tumultuous first millennium, it is the essential general survey of the subject. Brown charts the rise to prominence of a religion that began as an obscure sect in Roman Judaea and developed into Europe’s dominant religious – and political – institution. Christianity played a pivotal role in the making of Europe, as well as the delineation of its boundaries: the political gulf between Europe and its eastern neighbors was also a religious divide. This volume offers students of religious history unmatched depth of analysis by the leading academic authority on the period.
About the Author
Peter Brown is Emeritus Professor of History at Princeton University. He is a celebrated scholar and author of numerous seminal historical works, which include Augustine of Hippo (1967, 2000), The World of Late Antiquity (1971), The Cult of the Saints (1982), The Body and Society (1988), Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity: Towards a Christian Empire (1992), Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World (1995), Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (2002), and the forthcoming Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (2012).
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