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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
I enjoyed listening to Tom Holland at Adelaide's Writers Week earlier this year. He was charming and engaging and I bought this book on the strength of that. The sub-heading on the cover touts this book as "A blaze of colour lights up the Dark Ages" - unfortunately it didn't do that for me. After 100 pages I wearied of the endless recitation of kings, crowns and kingdoms when I was hoping for something a little more engaging. Perhaps I'm simply shallow, but my life is just too short so I've moved on.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
challenging
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
The key issue with Millennium is understanding what the book is about. The first-half of the title, 'Millennium: The End of the World', indicates it is concerned with the year 1000 (or possibly the one-thousand years until then) and the millenarian movement, that is, a fear of an imminent end to the world. In Christianity, as the book establishes, this originally focussed on the years 1000 and 1033 as important anniversaries that could be marked by Jesus' second coming.
Confusingly, the preface then focusses on the "world-shaking impact of the events associated with Canossa [Italy]", that is, a specific meeting between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand) in 1076. The consequences of which, we are told, fundamentally altered the medieval world and resonate right through to the present day. In order to understand these we must know our background. "A revolution such as the eleventh century witnessed ... can only truly be understood in the context of the order that it superseded. So it is that the narrative of this book reaches far back in time: the the very origins of the ideal of a Christian empire." All of this speaks to the rest of the book's title: 'The Forging of Christendom'. The key event of this meeting is the severing of church and state and the emergence in the later medieval period (1100 onwards) of parallel power structures: state and Roman Catholic Church.
It was never clear to me in the whole sweep of the book how these two dimensions of enquiry truly relate to one and other. What we get is a book that is, in part, a gallop through the emergence of the Christian West, covering the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Franks (Clovis, Charlemagne and their various successors), the splitting into East and West Francia, the Lombards, the rise of the Caliphate and capture of much of Spain by the Saracens and so on all the way through to the unlikely conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders in 1099.
This is all admirably well told by Tom Holland. I have recently read a book covering just about the same period - [b:The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|6740690|The Inheritance of Rome A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|Chris Wickham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347254183l/6740690._SY75_.jpg|6482320] - so have a very recent point of comparison. True to Holland's form in [b:Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic|91018|Rubicon The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic|Tom Holland|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1335143016l/91018._SY75_.jpg|87825] and [b:Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West|821563|Persian Fire The First World Empire and the Battle for the West|Tom Holland|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421010327l/821563._SY75_.jpg|100036], Millennium is extremely easy to read. It opts to avoid the academic disputes and challenges inherent in a study of this period (so well laid out in [b:The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|6740690|The Inheritance of Rome A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|Chris Wickham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347254183l/6740690._SY75_.jpg|6482320]) and provides a current best view of the history that doesn't get mired in technical details or ambiguity. To be clear it mentions points of uncertainty but does so quickly (a 'probably' here, a 'we cannot know but think' there).
In this book we have a more enthusiastic and fun blast through events with a reasonable amount of artistic license allowed Holland to interpolate motives and imbue personalities beyond what the evidence likely always supports. The following excerpt is representative of the type of latitude Holland takes with his dressing up of individuals and bringing events to life:
"It did not take long, however, for the papal tearaway to be tripped up by his own ambitions. Otto, well practised in the art of leaving his adversaries to fall flat on their faces, watched patiently from beyond the Alps as [Pope] John [XII], proving himself as ill-disciplined in the field of diplomacy as in every other sphere, steadily affronted his neighbours ..."
In contrast to more academic book's (like the one mentioned above) this style of writing makes for much more enjoyable reading while covering pretty much the same ground. I have enough faith in Holland's bona fides to believe he is honestly representing the events as they are currently best understood, while his creativity and narrative flair encouraged me to engage with the history better than the drier tomes available.
But this is not, unfortunately, the whole story. What we get, in addition to this enjoyable ride through history, is a lensing and distortion of it through the eschatological framing device Holland needlessly adds. Holland reads into numerous events or circumstances the notion that, behind it all, the reckoning looms and awareness of this is somehow causative of the events themselves. This might be reasonable on occasion but, in the main, I do not think the events described here either support or require an interpretation through the prism of people's general fears for the end of days. Particularly as so much of the book concerns periods hundreds of years before the 1000-year mark, when millenarian views might more reasonably have been argued to be of relevance to the decision making of kings, emperors, popes and the like.
Millennium is a well written book in search of a hook. It is, in the wash, an enjoyably semi-narrativised description of the years from 400 to about 1100, albeit a somewhat scattergun one as must be the case for a book with such a wider temporal and geographical range. But, in its attempts to justify its choice of period and to demarcate those years as in some way special, it ends up trying to be something it cannot be: an account of 700 years of history flattened into a single concept - the end of the world. This imposes a needless straitjacket on what otherwise could have been a valuable, lay reader-friendly contribution to the literature on an important and under appreciated segment of history.
Confusingly, the preface then focusses on the "world-shaking impact of the events associated with Canossa [Italy]", that is, a specific meeting between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII (Hildebrand) in 1076. The consequences of which, we are told, fundamentally altered the medieval world and resonate right through to the present day. In order to understand these we must know our background. "A revolution such as the eleventh century witnessed ... can only truly be understood in the context of the order that it superseded. So it is that the narrative of this book reaches far back in time: the the very origins of the ideal of a Christian empire." All of this speaks to the rest of the book's title: 'The Forging of Christendom'. The key event of this meeting is the severing of church and state and the emergence in the later medieval period (1100 onwards) of parallel power structures: state and Roman Catholic Church.
It was never clear to me in the whole sweep of the book how these two dimensions of enquiry truly relate to one and other. What we get is a book that is, in part, a gallop through the emergence of the Christian West, covering the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Franks (Clovis, Charlemagne and their various successors), the splitting into East and West Francia, the Lombards, the rise of the Caliphate and capture of much of Spain by the Saracens and so on all the way through to the unlikely conquest of Jerusalem by the crusaders in 1099.
This is all admirably well told by Tom Holland. I have recently read a book covering just about the same period - [b:The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|6740690|The Inheritance of Rome A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|Chris Wickham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347254183l/6740690._SY75_.jpg|6482320] - so have a very recent point of comparison. True to Holland's form in [b:Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic|91018|Rubicon The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic|Tom Holland|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1335143016l/91018._SY75_.jpg|87825] and [b:Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West|821563|Persian Fire The First World Empire and the Battle for the West|Tom Holland|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1421010327l/821563._SY75_.jpg|100036], Millennium is extremely easy to read. It opts to avoid the academic disputes and challenges inherent in a study of this period (so well laid out in [b:The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|6740690|The Inheritance of Rome A History of Europe from 400 to 1000|Chris Wickham|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347254183l/6740690._SY75_.jpg|6482320]) and provides a current best view of the history that doesn't get mired in technical details or ambiguity. To be clear it mentions points of uncertainty but does so quickly (a 'probably' here, a 'we cannot know but think' there).
In this book we have a more enthusiastic and fun blast through events with a reasonable amount of artistic license allowed Holland to interpolate motives and imbue personalities beyond what the evidence likely always supports. The following excerpt is representative of the type of latitude Holland takes with his dressing up of individuals and bringing events to life:
"It did not take long, however, for the papal tearaway to be tripped up by his own ambitions. Otto, well practised in the art of leaving his adversaries to fall flat on their faces, watched patiently from beyond the Alps as [Pope] John [XII], proving himself as ill-disciplined in the field of diplomacy as in every other sphere, steadily affronted his neighbours ..."
In contrast to more academic book's (like the one mentioned above) this style of writing makes for much more enjoyable reading while covering pretty much the same ground. I have enough faith in Holland's bona fides to believe he is honestly representing the events as they are currently best understood, while his creativity and narrative flair encouraged me to engage with the history better than the drier tomes available.
But this is not, unfortunately, the whole story. What we get, in addition to this enjoyable ride through history, is a lensing and distortion of it through the eschatological framing device Holland needlessly adds. Holland reads into numerous events or circumstances the notion that, behind it all, the reckoning looms and awareness of this is somehow causative of the events themselves. This might be reasonable on occasion but, in the main, I do not think the events described here either support or require an interpretation through the prism of people's general fears for the end of days. Particularly as so much of the book concerns periods hundreds of years before the 1000-year mark, when millenarian views might more reasonably have been argued to be of relevance to the decision making of kings, emperors, popes and the like.
Millennium is a well written book in search of a hook. It is, in the wash, an enjoyably semi-narrativised description of the years from 400 to about 1100, albeit a somewhat scattergun one as must be the case for a book with such a wider temporal and geographical range. But, in its attempts to justify its choice of period and to demarcate those years as in some way special, it ends up trying to be something it cannot be: an account of 700 years of history flattened into a single concept - the end of the world. This imposes a needless straitjacket on what otherwise could have been a valuable, lay reader-friendly contribution to the literature on an important and under appreciated segment of history.
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Ecellent history of the years around the first millenium and the shaping of European identity. Tom Holland never disappoints
informative
slow-paced
Interesting, but was a bit meandering: https://blogendorff.com/2022/01/03/book-review-millennium/