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Dominion
- How the Christian Revolution Remade the World
- Narrated by: Tom Holland, Mark Meadows
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
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Millennium
- The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows, Tom Holland
- Length: 17 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Millennium is a stunning panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000. This was the age of Canute, William the Conqueror and Pope Gregory VII, of Vikings, monks and serfs, of the earliest castles and the invention of knighthood, and of the primal conflict between church and state. The story of how the distinctive culture of Europe - restless, creative and dynamic - was forged from out of the convulsions of these extraordinary times is as fascinating and as momentous as any in history.
Written by: Tom Holland
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Rubicon
- The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows, Tom Holland
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness - the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall. It is a story of incomparable drama.
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Good Intro
- By Bryce Wittenberg on 2023-07-20
Written by: Tom Holland
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In the Shadow of the Sword
- The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two venerable empires: the Persian and the Roman. A hundred years on and one had vanished forever, while the other seemed almost finished. Ruling in their place were the Arabs: an upheaval so profound that it spelt, in effect, the end of the ancient world. In The Shadow of the Sword, Tom Holland explores how this came about.
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Not accurate about Christian history
- By Judy Lyoness on 2023-08-10
Written by: Tom Holland
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Dynasty
- The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Dynasty tells the story of Rome's first dynasty of emperors, from its establishment by Augustus Caesar in the last decades of the first century BC to its final, florid extinction less than a century later. The line of autocrats known to historians as the 'Julio-Claudians' remains to this day a byword for depravity. The brilliance of its allure and the blood-steeped shadows cast by its crimes still haunt the public imagination.
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So good!
- By randy hanson on 2019-10-05
Written by: Tom Holland
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Pax
- War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Tom Holland
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Pax Romana has long been shorthand for the empire’s golden age. Stretching from Caledonia to Arabia, Rome ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind. Pax is a captivating narrative history of Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to realms beyond the frontier, historian Tom Holland shows ancient Rome in all its glory
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Enlightening
- By Anonymous User on 2023-10-23
Written by: Tom Holland
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Persian Fire
- The First World Empire, Battle for the West
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows, Tom Holland
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In 480 BC, Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For 70 years, victory had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. In the space of a single generation, they had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks of the mainland managed to hold out.
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Awesome book. I love Tom Holland
- By randy hanson on 2019-10-22
Written by: Tom Holland
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Millennium
- The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows, Tom Holland
- Length: 17 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Millennium is a stunning panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000. This was the age of Canute, William the Conqueror and Pope Gregory VII, of Vikings, monks and serfs, of the earliest castles and the invention of knighthood, and of the primal conflict between church and state. The story of how the distinctive culture of Europe - restless, creative and dynamic - was forged from out of the convulsions of these extraordinary times is as fascinating and as momentous as any in history.
Written by: Tom Holland
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Rubicon
- The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows, Tom Holland
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Roman Republic was the most remarkable state in history. What began as a small community of peasants camped among marshes and hills ended up ruling the known world. Rubicon paints a vivid portrait of the Republic at the climax of its greatness - the same greatness which would herald the catastrophe of its fall. It is a story of incomparable drama.
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Good Intro
- By Bryce Wittenberg on 2023-07-20
Written by: Tom Holland
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In the Shadow of the Sword
- The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 17 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
In the 6th century AD, the Near East was divided between two venerable empires: the Persian and the Roman. A hundred years on and one had vanished forever, while the other seemed almost finished. Ruling in their place were the Arabs: an upheaval so profound that it spelt, in effect, the end of the ancient world. In The Shadow of the Sword, Tom Holland explores how this came about.
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Not accurate about Christian history
- By Judy Lyoness on 2023-08-10
Written by: Tom Holland
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Dynasty
- The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 17 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dynasty tells the story of Rome's first dynasty of emperors, from its establishment by Augustus Caesar in the last decades of the first century BC to its final, florid extinction less than a century later. The line of autocrats known to historians as the 'Julio-Claudians' remains to this day a byword for depravity. The brilliance of its allure and the blood-steeped shadows cast by its crimes still haunt the public imagination.
-
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So good!
- By randy hanson on 2019-10-05
Written by: Tom Holland
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Pax
- War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Tom Holland
- Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Pax Romana has long been shorthand for the empire’s golden age. Stretching from Caledonia to Arabia, Rome ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. It was the wealthiest and most formidable state in the history of humankind. Pax is a captivating narrative history of Rome at the height of its power. From the gilded capital to realms beyond the frontier, historian Tom Holland shows ancient Rome in all its glory
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Enlightening
- By Anonymous User on 2023-10-23
Written by: Tom Holland
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Persian Fire
- The First World Empire, Battle for the West
- Written by: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows, Tom Holland
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 480 BC, Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For 70 years, victory had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. In the space of a single generation, they had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks of the mainland managed to hold out.
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Awesome book. I love Tom Holland
- By randy hanson on 2019-10-22
Written by: Tom Holland
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Return of the God Hypothesis
- Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe
- Written by: Stephen C. Meyer
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 18 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The New York Times best-selling author of Darwin’s Doubt presents groundbreaking scientific evidence of the existence of God, based on breakthroughs in physics, cosmology, and biology.
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A low-resolution snapshot of the book
- By DGFeijoo on 2021-07-25
Written by: Stephen C. Meyer
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Simply Christian
- Written by: N. T. Wright
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Simply Christian walks the listener through the Christian faith step by step and question by question. With simple yet exciting and accessible prose, Wright challenges skeptics by offering explanations for even the toughest doubt-filled dilemmas, leaving believers with a reason for renewed faith. For anyone who wants to travel beyond the controversies that can obscure what the Christian faith really stands for, this simple book is the perfect vehicle for that journey.
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Fantastic book!
- By W. Ben on 2023-01-27
Written by: N. T. Wright
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The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
- Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution
- Written by: Carl R. Trueman
- Narrated by: Carl R. Trueman
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends — yet no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of the self.
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Great Content, Tough Listen
- By Andrew Geddert on 2023-02-28
Written by: Carl R. Trueman
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Strange New World
- How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution
- Written by: Carl R. Trueman, Ryan T. Anderson - foreword
- Narrated by: Carl R. Trueman
- Length: 5 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman discusses how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of “expressive individualism.” Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas.
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Great context for how our culture got here
- By Jeff Alpaugh on 2023-01-26
Written by: Carl R. Trueman, and others
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Rome and Persia
- The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry
- Written by: Adrian Goldsworthy
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 20 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The Roman empire was like no other. Stretching from the north of Britain to the Sahara, and from the Atlantic coast to the Euphrates, it imposed peace and prosperity on an unprecedented scale. Its only true rival lay in the east, where the Parthian and then Persian empires ruled over great cities and the trade routes to mysterious lands beyond. Tracing seven centuries of conflict between Rome and Persia, historian Adrian Goldsworthy shows how these two great powers evolved together
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Another Anti Iranian Book
- By Shiva Vosoughi on 2023-09-26
Written by: Adrian Goldsworthy
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Saint Thomas Aquinas
- Written by: G. K. Chesterton, Chesterton Books
- Narrated by: Guy Bethell
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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This is a top-quality audiobook of G. K. Chesterton's biography of St. Thomas Aquinas.
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Not my style
- By Peter Keyes on 2021-01-05
Written by: G. K. Chesterton, and others
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The Plantagenets
- The Kings Who Made England
- Written by: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 22 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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England’s greatest royal dynasty, the Plantagenets, ruled over England through eight generations of kings. Their remarkable reign saw England emerge from the Dark Ages to become a highly organised kingdom that spanned a vast expanse of Europe. Plantagenet rule saw the establishment of laws and creation of artworks, monuments and tombs which survive to this day, and continue to speak of their sophistication, brutality and secrets. Dan Jones brings you a new vision of this battle-scarred history.
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Very good overall book
- By Jason Gacek on 2023-02-06
Written by: Dan Jones
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The Air We Breathe
- How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality
- Written by: Glen Scrivener
- Narrated by: Glen Scrivener
- Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Today in the West, many consider the church to be dead or dying. Christianity is seen as outdated, bigoted, and responsible for many of society’s problems. This leaves many believers embarrassed about their faith and many outsiders wary of religion. But what if the Christian message is not the enemy of our modern Western values, but the very thing that makes sense of them? In this fascinating book, Glen Scrivener takes listeners on a journey to discover how the teachings of Jesus not only turned the ancient world upside down, but continue to underpin the way we think.
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Remarkable
- By BDahl on 2022-12-11
Written by: Glen Scrivener
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Introduction To Christianity (2nd Edition)
- Written by: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI
- Narrated by: Scott Russell
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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One of Cardinal Ratzinger's most important and widely read books, this volume is a revised second edition with an improved translation and an in-depth preface by the Cardinal. As he states in the preface, since this book was first published over 30 years ago, many changes and significant events have occurred in the world, and in the Church. But even so, he says he is firmly convinced that his fundamental approach in this book is still very timely and crucial for the spiritual needs of modern man.
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Grateful for this reading
- By Mr Steven W Ballem on 2023-01-14
Written by: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and others
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Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview
- 2nd Edition
- Written by: J. P. Moreland, William Lane Craig
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 39 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig offer a comprehensive introduction to philosophy from a Christian perspective. In their broad sweep, they introduce listeners to the principal subdisciplines of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics, and philosophy of religion. They do so with characteristic clarity and incisiveness. Arguments are clearly outlined, and rival theories are presented with fairness and accuracy.
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A Serious Academic Text
- By David on 2020-10-30
Written by: J. P. Moreland, and others
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Martin Luther
- The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World
- Written by: Eric Metaxas
- Narrated by: Eric Metaxas
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Five hundred years after Luther's now famous 95 Theses appeared, Eric Metaxas, acclaimed biographer of the best-selling Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, paints a startling portrait of the wild figure whose adamantine faith cracked the edifice of Western Christendom and dragged medieval Europe into the future.
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Excellent!
- By Noah Capuano on 2022-12-08
Written by: Eric Metaxas
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Orthodoxy
- Written by: G. K. Chesterton
- Narrated by: Philippe Duquenoy
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The book acts as a guide which explains how Christianity is the best choice for all human beings, not because it's outside of our world and an independent truth, but because it is the answer to our base needs and desires. Only when Christianity is seen as a way of life instead of a belief can the true power of the faith be realized.
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Must read for all
- By GF on 2023-02-12
Written by: G. K. Chesterton
Publisher's Summary
A "marvelous" (Economist) account of how the Christian Revolution forged the Western imagination.
Crucifixion, the Romans believed, was the worst fate imaginable, a punishment reserved for slaves. How astonishing it was, then, that people should have come to believe that one particular victim of crucifixion - an obscure provincial by the name of Jesus - was to be worshipped as a god. Dominion explores the implications of this shocking conviction as they have reverberated throughout history.
Today, the West remains utterly saturated by Christian assumptions. As Tom Holland demonstrates, our morals and ethics are not universal but are instead the fruits of a very distinctive civilization. Concepts such as secularism, liberalism, science, and homosexuality are deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed. From Babylon to the Beatles, Saint Michael to #MeToo, Dominion tells the story of how Christianity transformed the modern world.
What the critics say
"A sweeping narrative...[Holland] is an exceptionally good storyteller with a marvelous eye for detail...excellent fun." (The Economist)
"What in other hands could have been a dry pedantic account of Christianity's birth and evolution becomes in Holland's an all-absorbing story...It takes a master storyteller to translate the development of a philosophical notion into a captivating story, and Holland proves to be one... Holland offers a remarkably nuanced and balanced account of two millennia of Christian history - intellectual, cultural, artistic, social and political. The book's scope is breathtaking." (The Literary Review)
"Christianity may not be on the march, but its principles continue to dominate in much of the world; this thoughtful, astute account describes how and why... Holland delivers penetrating, often jolting discussions on great controversies of Western civilization in which war, politics, and culture have formed a background to changes in values... An insightful argument that Christian ethics, even when ignored, are the norm worldwide." (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
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What listeners say about Dominion
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Phil J
- 2021-01-01
What a Story
so comprehensive, and thought provoking. It was easy to listen, being swept up in the many characters and global expressions of the story. Perhaps to his credit the author doesn't use this book to pick a side and justify his position, and the book seems stronger for it. It's a daunting journey that is well worth the investment, and really well narrated!!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-07-09
good content, bad narrator
I heard Tom in a couple YouTube videos and immediately liked him. He's a decent writer and an even better historian. What killed the audiobook for me was the narrator. It sounded like he was trying to turn everything into an action thriller. The overall effect was to have the reader believe that either he didn't know the material or that his range of ability was very limited. Personally I wish Tom had narrated the whole thing and not just the introduction.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Adam
- 2022-10-03
2000 years of history in one fell swoop
The author manages to transition seamlessly between various figures and topics, going from perspective to perspective in a way that always has you ready for the next perfectly timed historical name drop. Starting with Jesus and going all the way to Donald Trump he never seems to lose momentum even as he checks in with almost every relevant major character and event along the way. The book Overall maintains a very objective and measured approach that never ventures into the realm of being preachy or annoying. Definitely worth a read for any fan of history.
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1 person found this helpful
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- David Selke
- 2020-12-20
Superbly interesting overview of Christianity
Tom Holland manages the difficult task of providing a 2000 year history of Christianity, and summarizing its impact on today's culture. Very interesting!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Tatiana Kim
- 2023-11-05
Hard to follow
The sentences are very long and complex and not suited for listening. the book should have been adjusted for audio content.
I'd prefer a more clear logical description than what the author attempts. It's hard to follow the story without prior knowledge of the characters mentioned. I've started the Rubicon by Holland and it's the same thing. He writes for history geeks, not for an average person interested.
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-08-28
Great content, but the narrator falls short.
I tried adjusting the playback speed in an attempt to make the listening experience more engaging or tolerable due to the narrator's consistent fatigue.
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- Janice Bennett
- 2023-04-26
Wonderful listen
My first Tom Holland, not my last. Beautifully written, not a boring list of what happened, but a narrative, an epic.
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- Mat
- 2023-04-23
Book good his podcast is better
I listen to his podcast “TheRest is History” religiously. It is amazing . This book is good but I prefers the one about the origins or islam
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- Austin Fusilier
- 2023-04-18
Phenomenal Work
A phenomenal work, thoroughly describing "...the most influential framework for making sense of human existence that has ever existed." Just as the proverbial fish, when asked, replies "...what water?", so too all of the West. We're swimming in it.
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- C G
- 2022-11-25
A+
The book was recommended to me by a pastor. I found it informative, compelling and intriguing. enjoyed listening, thank you
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- Honora
- 2020-06-16
Only the forward is narrated by Holland.
12 hours in, I just can't take any more of the narrator's strange emoting. Every sentence is read with a melodramatic treatment that would be strange for any book - but for this text it seems particularly strange. It is as if Meadows has no confidence in Holland's writing and feels that he needs to pump some drama in what he (or the producer) feels is dull stuff. Also, I don't think it is fair of Audible to use Holland's brief narration of the Preface as the "sample" for the book when it is Meadows who takes over for another 22 plus hours!. Honestly, it was as if the narrator were reading aloud sentences in a language he only understood phonetically and had not the vaguest idea as to the meaning. It was so laughably bad - as members of my household can attest when I listened without earbuds - so disassociated with content that as engrossed as I was by the material, I pulled the plug at 12 hours in and am reading the rest of the book (at page 292) on my own.
btw - I have noticed a disturbing trend that "performance" by the narrator has begun to overwhelm the text in other Audible selections as well. These strange highly interpretive (and strange), hyper-dramatic narrative treatments have too often spoiled the nuanced writing of excellent authors. The voice of the writer is destroyed by narrators who I suppose have been told to "be engaging." It's awful! If this is an intentional effort by audiobook producers to be "entertaining" it reveals a lack of trust of both writer and reader.
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47 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 2019-11-04
Author only reads preface
Author only reads preface. Other guy reads the rest. Beware. It’s good. You just won’t get that sweet accent for twenty-two hours!
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24 people found this helpful
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- John Murphy
- 2019-12-19
A Little Confusing
This book was a little confusing, or at least my expectations were confused. I thought it was going to be a study of how Christian culture and thought took over the world (which it certainly did), instead it read to me like a travelogue of Christian history. I found myself repeatedly asking the question, “what is the author’s purpose in all this?” Rightly or wrongly it was befuddling to me.
That is not to say that the book isn’t interesting, because it is.
I think my favorite parts of the book were two-fold, first the prologue and epilogue because Mr. Holland writes personally in those sections and I found them the most interesting parts for me, especially in the epilogue concerning the influence of his great-aunt who was a committed Christian.
The other part of the book that I enjoyed was when Mr. Holland writes of current events. He rightly points out the origin in a Christian milieu of virtually all of the forces that are either outright opposed to the Christian faith, or certainly at odds with it. As one example the “woke” movement in which, not only must you ask forgiveness for your sins, but also do penance and atone for them. Where did this pattern come from? The Christian faith of course. Mr. Holland gives plenty of examples, and, like it or not, he is correct in his analysis
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19 people found this helpful
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- horoscopy
- 2019-11-19
lots of nice writing, but kind of light on history
just like the other Tom Holland books I have read , I felt it was nice, sweet and fluffy, but kind of lacking in substance.
btw , I do think (along with many others) that "Rubicon" was his masterpiece. this is kind of the closest he has come to that I think, but still a bit too fluffy in content.
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15 people found this helpful
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- SF
- 2020-10-13
Affectation ruins the text
I tried really hard to enjoy this as the topic is fascinating and relevant. I usually prefer listening to non-fiction because the narration brings the text more energy. However, in this case it is distracting at best and ruinous at times. I finally gave up, as I dreaded getting in the car and having to hit the play button. I will buy the book and read it instead. Hoping Tom Holland’s future books are given a more appropriate narrator.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Tim E. Higgins
- 2020-01-10
I Was Furious
I was furious when, eighteen hours into this 22 hour tome, the author finally revealed his willingness to egregiously mis-characterize facts to support his theory of history. The whole volume is supposed to be about how Christianity has shaped civilization. I spent eighteen hours listening to him set-up straw men and then "slay" them with unsupported assertions. It was intellectually mushy but there was enough interesting perspective to keep me going. Then, while discussing Christian influence in the Gilted Age, he savaged the life and reputation of Andrew Carnage. The author's characterization was so one-sided and vituperative that it caused me to question all his previous assertions about historical personages and situations. I stopped reading. I just wish it had happened earlier and saved me the wasted time.
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- TsundokuSensei
- 2020-01-09
Christendom as societal foundation
As the subtitle states, the aim of this book is to show how Christianity is the foundation upon which modern secular societies have been built and upon which the morality of those societies is based. In this, I believe the book succeeds admirably though not without a few hiccups.
Starting several centuries before the birth of Christ, Tom Holland describes what morality - such as it was - actually meant in pre-Christian cultures. With this starting point, the author takes us through twenty-one chapters, leading up to the present day, each one further along in time, showing how Christianity itself evolved as well as the Christians' understanding of what it meant to be Christian. Through this, the author shows that modern society's moral principles are so fully ingrained in Western civilization that we take them as a given (the concept of human rights and equality being primary among these) without recognizing how alien these concepts are - or were before Christianity. Even today's secular humanists rely upon them, many if not most of whom are not aware of the wellspring of their now-cherished beliefs.
I thought it was an excellent book and I learned a lot about history and the evolution of moral thought in this book. One complaint would be that there isn't, at the end, any resolution to the question of, If society no longer recognizes that it owes its cherished moral beliefs to Christianity, what will happen to those beliefs when/if Christianity recedes from daily life. To some extent this question is dealt with, perhaps a bit more completely, by Douglas Murray near the end of his book, "The Strange Death of Europe." Holland leaves this as more of an open question, only briefly asking the question itself near the end of the book.
But other than that quibble, I found this be an enlightening book that any student of history would enjoy. The narration is superb - both Tom Holland's introduction and conclusion and Mark Meadows' reading of the majority of the book.
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- B. Baxter
- 2021-10-10
Not Worth The Time Unless You Love Arrogance
This book was recommended to me by several people whose opinions I value and trust. I gave it a good go - the preface and 2 chapters - and returned it in disgust (the very first book I returned in 3 years as an Audible member). First, the book itself. As other reviewers said, it is a sweeping summary of history. My objection is that the author is so full of himself that he is insufferable. "What a smart and good boy I am" comes through on every page. If I heard yet another sentence start with a clause, or a statement about Pompey or Demetrius with a cutesy aside, something on the order of "He never met an audience he didn't want to impress," I thought I'd scream. The book reads like a student who wants to cram every little bit of information he's acquired into the pages to impress us with his knowledge. Yuck.
The narrator was perfect for this book with his Oxbridge accent that made me want to rip the application out of my phone. While I would have loved listening to him on a different book, he exacerbated the pretentiousness of the text. Highly dramatic, one could say he was appropriately conveying the sense of the book - so I may look for other narrations by Meadows, but NEVER will try another book by Tom Holland. Be forewarned. I'm going to go wash off the memory of a really, really unsatisfactory experience.
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- Anonymous
- 2020-07-04
Engaging, Insightful, Relevant, and Powerful
This is the best book I’ve read in a while. By giving a survey of from pre-Christian Rome to the modern day, Holland demonstrates that “universal equality”, “secularism”, and “glory of the downtrodden” are distinctly Christian innovations whose seditious and disruptive effects so profoundly shaped Western thought as we know it. So deeply have we internalized these values that they have become “self evident” even though throughout history, and even in some cultures today, they were and are far from self evident. As he builds up his framework throughout the narratives of history, the book crescendos into applying that framework to the recent social changes of the late 2010s and gives a truly innovative and spine-tingling paradigm through which to understand them.
Holland handles the history of Christianity very evenhandedly. He does not pull punches when documenting brutality done in Christ’s name, but neither does he shy away of almost fawning praise for those deserving of it.
The prose is engaging and the reading is well done, both by the author and the narrator.
I sincerely hope this book is widely read by many.
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- Anna Miller
- 2020-01-28
I’m overwhelmed with emotion.
The final pages left me overwhelmed with emotion; gratitude for what I’ve inherited, grief for what’s been lost, and a profound sense of awe at the enduring power of the Christian myth, of which we are all a part.
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