Christendom doesn’t feature protagonists, stories, rising and falling action, or shifting points of view. It’s a series of set pieces in which the animating presence is the historian ... The result is an extraordinary synthesis — and one that is, for the most part, extraordinarily hard going ... For most of its reading, the strongest impression the book leaves is of how remote the history of those times and places feels when the notion of Christianity’s exceptionalism is left out ... In all this, something is missing — or has been left out, once again by the author’s design, as far as I can tell. This is any recognition of religious faith as a quality unto itself, not just an expression of other, firmer-seeming qualities ... Without it, Christendom is more learned than persuasive.
In this fresh, prodigiously researched approach, the author uses relatively newly found sources to delineate the development of these historical progressions. First, Heather acknowledges Christianity’s failures in the course of its expansions. Second, he explores the diversity of Christian thought and practice through these years. Finally, he examines the reasons why people made the religious choices that they did ... A worthwhile undertaking for serious students of medieval Europe and/or Christian history.
Heather draws on careful scholarship to give due to the nuances of Christianity’s spread, and constructs a narrative that’s packed with specifics yet readable.
