Christianity, one of the world's great religions, has had an incalculable impact on human history. This book, now the most comprehensive and up to date single volume work in English, describes not only the main ideas and personalities of Christian history, its organisation and spirituality, but how it has changed politics, sex, and human society. Diarmaid MacCulloch ranges from Palestine in the first century to India in the third, from Damascus to China in the seventh century and from San Francisco to Korea in the twentieth. He is one of the most widely travelled of Christian historians and conveys a sense of place as arrestingly as he does the power of ideas. He presents the development of Christian history differently from any of his predecessors. He shows how, after a semblance of unity in its earliest centuries, the Christian church divided during the next 1400 years into three increasingly distanced parts, of which the western Church was by no means always the most important: he observes that at the end of the first eight centuries of Christian history, Baghdad might have seemed a more likely capital for worldwide Christianity than Rome. This is the first truly global history of Christianity.
MacCulloch attended Hillcroft Preparatory School and Stowmarket Grammar school in Suffolk, and subsequently read History at Churchill College, Cambridge (B.A. 1972, M.A. 1976) where he was organ scholar. He took a Diploma in Archive Administration at Liverpool University in 1973, and then returned to Cambridge to complete a Ph.D. in Tudor History under the supervision of Sir G.R. Elton (awarded 1977), combining this with a position as Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College. MacCulloch was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (1978), a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (1982), and a Fellow of the British Academy (2001). He is a Doctor of Divinity of the University of Oxford (2001) and in 2003 was awarded an honourary D.Litt. by the University of East Anglia. He co-edits the Journal of Ecclesiastical History.
He joined the (now Lesbian and) Gay Christian Movement in 1976, serving twice on its committee and briefly as honorary secretary.
From 1978 until 1990, MacCulloch was a tutor at Wesley College, Bristol and taught Church History in the department of Theology at the University of Bristol. He interrupted his teaching to study for the Oxford Diploma in Theology (awarded 1987) at Ripon College Cuddesdon. In 1987 he was ordained deacon in the Church of England and from 1987 to 1988 he served as Non-Stipendiary Minister at Clifton All Saints with Saint John in the diocese of Bristol. However, in response to a motion put before the General Synod in 1987 by the Reverend Tony Higton regarding sexuality of clergy, he declined ordination to the priesthood and ceased to minister at Clifton.
His book Reformation: Europe's House Divided 1490–1700 (2003) won the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award adding to his earlier success in carrying off the 1996 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Thomas Cranmer: A Life. His latest book, Christianity: the first 3000 years, will be published in 2009, to accompany a Television series on BBC 4.
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从结构和论证的严密性来看,这本书堪称典范。它并非只是简单地按时间顺序排列事实,而是围绕几个核心的驱动力——比如“权力结构的演变”、“文本阐释权的争夺”以及“信仰与世俗生活的张力”——构建起一条清晰的逻辑主线。这种主题驱动式的结构,使得不同历史时期之间的联系变得异常明晰。例如,作者在讨论十七世纪的科学革命与宗教思想保守化之间的关系时,就巧妙地将其与早期对亚里士多德哲学的吸收过程联系起来,形成了一个历史的回响。我特别欣赏它对资料来源的平衡处理,它没有偏袒任何一方的史料,而是将来自官方教廷记录、民间异端文献乃至世俗政府档案的证据交织在一起,形成了一个多维度的叙事场域。这让读者能够清晰地看到,所谓的“正统”是如何在不断的冲突和妥协中被建构起来的。这种深层次的结构设计,使得每一次阅读都能发现新的联系,绝非一目十行的快餐读物所能比拟。
评分坦白说,这本书的论述深度足以满足资深研究者的需求,但其呈现方式却又对普通爱好者极其友好,这是一种高超的平衡艺术。它在处理那些充满争议性的议题时,表现出了极大的学术克制和同理心。比如,在探讨中世纪对异端的镇压行为时,作者没有使用简单的道德审判,而是着力去还原当时的法律框架、社会恐惧以及神学合理性,让读者去理解“为什么会发生”而不是仅仅停留在“多么可怕”。这种对历史语境的尊重,使得本书的论证充满了力量和说服力。它鼓励读者去思考复杂性,而不是接受简单的二元对立。我个人认为,任何想要真正理解西方文明根基的人,都应该仔细研读这本书,因为它提供的不仅仅是历史事实的堆砌,更是一套审视人类信仰、权力与社会变迁的分析工具,其影响远远超出了宗教史的范畴。
评分这本书最让我感到震撼的地方,在于它对于不同地理区域内基督教传播差异的细致描绘。我们常常习惯于将“基督教历史”等同于欧洲中世纪和近代史,但本书在这方面展现了令人耳目一新的广度。无论是早期传入埃塞俄比亚和叙利亚的教会,还是后来在东西方交流中的独特发展路径,作者都给予了应有的关注。这种全球化的视角,极大地拓宽了我对这一宗教影响力的认知边界。特别是书中对比了不同文化背景如何“本土化”基督教教义的案例,比如,在特定东方文化中,禁欲主义与世俗责任的平衡点是如何被重新界定的,这比单纯罗列教派名称要深刻得多。它揭示了一个核心事实:信仰的生命力,很大程度上取决于其适应和融合新环境的能力。读完这部分内容,我不再将目光局限于罗马或日内瓦,而是看到了一个真正意义上的、跨越大陆和文明的信仰网络,这是一种非常宝贵的历史视野拓展。
评分我必须说,这本书的语言风格是它最大的亮点之一,它成功地避开了那种传统学术著作特有的、令人昏昏欲睡的陈词滥调。作者似乎拥有一种罕见的将严肃议题大众化的能力,行文间充满了洞察力,时不时冒出一些令人会心一笑的机智评论,使得阅读过程轻松愉快,毫无负担。尤其是在描述宗教改革时期那些错综复杂的权力斗争和教派分裂时,那种近乎于讽刺的幽默感,恰到好处地平衡了事件的沉重性。它让你感觉到,那些历史人物并非高高在上的圣人或魔鬼,而是有血有肉、会犯错、有私心的人。这种人性化的处理,极大地拉近了读者与历史的距离。例如,书中对某个特定教皇在世俗事务上的过度干预的描述,那种不动声色的批判,比任何直接的谴责都更有力量。对于我这种非专业历史研究者来说,这本书的价值在于它提供了一个既有深度又不失温度的视角,它让我能够带着好奇心和批判性思维去审视那些被神圣光环笼罩的事件,发现其背后隐藏的人间百态。
评分这本书的叙事节奏把握得极佳,读起来就像是跟随一位经验丰富且充满激情的导游,穿梭于历史的长廊之中。作者对不同历史时期的把握精准到位,既没有陷入枯燥的年代罗列,也没有为了追求故事性而牺牲史实的严谨性。特别是书中对于早期教父们思想演变的论述,那种抽丝剥茧般的分析,让人清晰地看到了基督教如何在复杂的罗马帝国晚期环境中生根发芽,并逐渐确立其核心教义的艰辛历程。比如,对于尼西亚会议前夕各方神学辩论的细致描摹,不仅仅是简单地介绍“A战胜了B”,而是深入剖析了这些看似抽象的神学分歧背后所蕴含的政治、文化和哲学张力。那种将宏大历史进程与微观的个体思想斗争完美结合的笔法,使得即便是对早期教会史不甚了解的读者,也能迅速沉浸其中,并对信仰的形成过程产生更深层次的理解和敬畏。书中对于中世纪经院哲学的介绍也颇为精彩,它成功地将那些晦涩难懂的逻辑推演转化为引人入胜的智力博弈,展现了那个时代知识分子的严谨与虔诚。整体而言,阅读体验是流畅而充实的,每翻过一页都像是解锁了一个新的历史维度。
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