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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
I was relieved to discover that this was not the kind of vapid Western Civilization triumphalism we get from a certain strain of macrohistorian (looking at you Niall Ferguson). The thesis that I did not expect, and was pleasantly surprised to see, was that this was a book about how humans act and react when they think the end of the world is coming, and then it... doesn't. The focus of this specific book is how humans, particularly Christians but also some Muslims and Norse Asatru, on how they approached the year 1000 (or the year 400 AH for Muslims). No one knows the future, and so they can only make decisions based on what they believe at the time. And that, in the end, is what history is, magnificently - "one damned thing after another".
I remember reading a book The End Is Always Near (1 star, would not recommend), and I remember wanting that book to be what this book actually was about. How do humans prepare for the "end of days", which seems to be an endless fascination of Western Christendom? And then, when it doesn't actually occur, what then? Do they admit their failure and adopt humility in prognosticating the future (spoiler alert - the answer is generally "no")? They generally change their focus, reform their worldview, and sometimes adopt a different goal for what they see as the "new world order" about to emerge. I believe that there a bit too much stretching for an overarching theme among human actions, but the theme itself was an interesting one, as well as important to us in the modern era.
I remember reading a book The End Is Always Near (1 star, would not recommend), and I remember wanting that book to be what this book actually was about. How do humans prepare for the "end of days", which seems to be an endless fascination of Western Christendom? And then, when it doesn't actually occur, what then? Do they admit their failure and adopt humility in prognosticating the future (spoiler alert - the answer is generally "no")? They generally change their focus, reform their worldview, and sometimes adopt a different goal for what they see as the "new world order" about to emerge. I believe that there a bit too much stretching for an overarching theme among human actions, but the theme itself was an interesting one, as well as important to us in the modern era.
Tom Holland is such a great and fun historian. I always appreciate his history and story telling.
adventurous
dark
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
Love a bit of Tom Holland. I obviously knew nothing about this period before, so it was cool to find some stuff out. Nice.
informative
reflective
slow-paced