aront's review against another edition

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4.0

An easy and interesting read about a fascinating topic. The points he clearly lays out are:

1. Paganism is a Christian invention
2. The traditional Christian view of a battle to the death with “paganism” is triumphalist nonsense
3. The scholarly argument that paganism got boring also doesn’t wash

He gives lots of fascinating details about the period to provide evidence for his arguments. The biggest flaw in the book is that he doesn’t coherently and clearly explain
1. what defines traditional Roman “religious” practices
2. how Christianity triumphed so easily if 2 and 3 above are bunk.

On point 1 he seems to argue that traditional Roman practice was so diversified and so foreign to our way of thinking that there is no overall coherent way to describe it beyond a collection of details. The first half seems true enough the second is less convincing. Nonetheless it seems it should be possible to be clearer and provide more general arguments.

As for point 2 it’s not clear at all why he doesn’t provide more explicit theses. He hints at stuff - the centralizing power of imperial rule, “books” as a technology for disseminating ideas, and cultural changes that opened up new approaches to understand the divine.

One takeaway from this book is that history is not something fixed in time, but a constantly updated narrative. New evidence and ideas compel historians to create new narratives of the past. That actually makes reading history fun. But the most compelling retelling needs clear theses so the reader can judge if they provide a better explanation of the evidence. By not clarifying all his theses O’Donnell undermines the value of his new narrative.

salderson's review against another edition

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4.0

Religious history is such an interesting and debatable topic. Religion seems to be present and even an active participant in the changing of social systems and worlds. James O'Donnell looks at these changes, and how the Roman Empire went from a largely locally-based polytheistic society, to one that was taken hold of by a new, monotheistic cult religion. O'Donnell boils it down to the perfect storm of circumstances and ideas; a conglomeration of changing social constructs, philosophy, and turmoil withing the Roman Empire.
His take on Roman religion was a little jarring, and maybe a tad too much blasé on the beliefs of pre-Christians. Belief is a personal and powerful thing that was strong for the old gods as much as the new one. But, just as I believe that not everyone was Christian in the Middle Ages (there were those who were not Christian at all and were just paying lip service), there were probably many ancient Romans (among others) who were also just going through the motions. So I do think he has a point, but I don't think the ancient gods should be minimized quite as much as O'Donnell does.
Semantic disagreement aside, I loved the conversational style O'Donnell used for his book. He was engaging and easy to read/understand. It is refreshing to read a more down to earth, approachable work that is so easy to engage with!

hwittenberg's review

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3.0

This book was tough to get through, but it might be my nonfiction slump I’m in. It was pretty insightful, but definitely had a Christian bias, and sometimes the characters and history got murky. So murky that, though I’m very familiar with Emperor Constantine, I was almost lost as to who he was talking about when we talked about him. Minor things, but entertaining and informative. It was nice to get a broader picture on the rise of Christianity, though it isn’t a history of Christianity.

louiepotterbook's review against another edition

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informative slow-paced

3.0

ladyofnorthfarm's review against another edition

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challenging funny informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

samypants35's review against another edition

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2.0

It started out really strong, but by the end I was struggling. I think it's more my fault than the authors, as the book is very readable. I lost my momentum after Christianity began to get adopted in the Roman empire. I think if I had more familiarity with the emperors or the story of early Christianity, I could have gotten a lot more from it, but I mostly was interested in the "end of traditional religion" part of the subtitle.

The author had a nice conversational tone, but I don't think this is an amazing introduction to a general historical audience.

sireno8's review against another edition

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3.0

This was like taking a really savvy course in Ancient Social History with a prof who knows his stuff and knows how to keep in interesting. Also, don't know if I've ever read anything about the mythology of religion -- i.e. the setting up of lore around practice. O'Donnell makes all seem plausible. People are always and have always been people.

silvernfire's review

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4.0

I enjoyed reading this book and found it thought-provoking, but I can't quite muster that final star. It took a while to figure out where O'Donnell was going. I decided to read Pagans because of the book summary that talked about how this was a history of the rise of Christianity as told from the viewpoints of the non-Christians whose religion(s) were destroyed by it. That's not entirely off-base, but having read the book, I'd say O'Donnell is arguing that "paganism" was created by Christianity as something it was differentiating itself from. It's not an entirely new argument—I've heard it over the years from modern Pagan writers—but I thought it would be interesting to hear it from what was more likely a modern Christian viewpoint.

For me, the main fault of the book was a lack of focus. As I said above, the publisher's description didn't match the book. This happens, but the problem continued into the book itself. I went through the first half of the book enjoying each chapter, but wondering why some of them had been included. Often, a chapter didn't seem related to the ones before and after it, so the first half of the book felt more like a collection of essays on pre-Christian Roman religious practices. Later, the author began referring back to these earlier chapters. and I appreciate how he brought all this together, but yes, I wish it had been clearer at the beginning. The book was more focused by the second half, but that covered the period in which Christianity was triumphing, and that part of history simply doesn't interest me as much. And this is a lot of history to cover in 241 pages (not counting the notes or the index). I found it helpful that I'd already done some reading on ancient Roman history, although O'Donnell is concentrating on the 4th century CE which is later than I'm familiar with. I get that the book is meant for non-specialists, but it would've been nice to slow down some more and get more in-depth with some of the points covered.

Still, yes, I recommend it if this is a topic that interests you. O'Donnell's tone is conversational. He likens the book to a tour of Rome, comparing what a tour guide might tell you to what he argues was closer to the truth. As a lover of linguistics, I liked when he'd take a word like "paganism" or "church" and talk about how it came to be used in this context. If you're willing to read a history you're unlikely to completely agree with, this may be worth your time.

triumphal_reads's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 out of 5 stars - Full review can be found at - https://triumphalreads.com/pagans-james-odonnell/

Cons - The second half of the book was much dryer than the first half.
- Not enough attention to the common people in the ancient world and their thoughts
Pros - Great use of the primary source material
- First half has an enjoyable array of various traditional religion practices (some may not like that purposeful lack of narrative here, but I though it worked well with the context)

robertrivasplata's review against another edition

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3.0

This book provides an outline of what we believe pre-christian western religions might have looked like. I would have preferred to have more comprehensive and detailed accounts of the different religions and cults of Ancient Europe and the Mediterranean, as well as more detail regarding the process by which Christianity supplanted the old religions. Overall, this book is a good starting point for its topic.