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A review by erikars
Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch
1.0
This was a rather long and rambling history. To be fair, any history that is trying to cover so much is likely to be so, but I came away feeling that I learned very little because there was no structure to stick the information to. It was just 40 hours (audio version) of fact after fact after fact.
As a casual reader of history, I want my history woven onto some framework. Not forced into it, but given enough consistent presentation that the reader can build a mental model. Of course, the choice of any such framework is going to necessarily mean that some things are left out, but the reader will remember more.
To be more concrete, with respect to this book, MacCulloch tried to cover both Christianity in its context as a mover of European history and many of the theological debates over Christianity's history (as well as much more). If he had just stuck to one -- e.g., the European historical perspective, bringing in the theological debates only when they effect the political situation -- then the book would have been more coherent.
Overall, I've gotten much more pleasure out of the more narrow histories I have read, such as Karen Armstrong's [b:The Bible A Biography|520771|The Bible A Biography|Karen Armstrong|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328774634s/520771.jpg|1980253]. They don't cover nearly so much, but they are actually memorable.
As a casual reader of history, I want my history woven onto some framework. Not forced into it, but given enough consistent presentation that the reader can build a mental model. Of course, the choice of any such framework is going to necessarily mean that some things are left out, but the reader will remember more.
To be more concrete, with respect to this book, MacCulloch tried to cover both Christianity in its context as a mover of European history and many of the theological debates over Christianity's history (as well as much more). If he had just stuck to one -- e.g., the European historical perspective, bringing in the theological debates only when they effect the political situation -- then the book would have been more coherent.
Overall, I've gotten much more pleasure out of the more narrow histories I have read, such as Karen Armstrong's [b:The Bible A Biography|520771|The Bible A Biography|Karen Armstrong|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328774634s/520771.jpg|1980253]. They don't cover nearly so much, but they are actually memorable.