The Darkening Age

Author: Catherine Nixey
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0544800931
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 373

Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book, winner of the Jerwood Award from the Royal Society of Literature, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, and named a Book of the Year by the Telegraph, Spectator, Observer, and BBC History Magazine, this bold new history of the rise of Christianity shows how its radical followers helped to annihilate Greek and Roman civilizations. The Darkening Age is the largely unknown story of how a militant religion deliberately attacked and suppressed the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in centuries of unquestioning adherence to "one true faith." Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyrs' deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless, and fundamentally intolerant. Unlike the polytheistic world, in which the addition of one new religion made no fundamental difference to the old ones, this new ideology stated not only that it was the way, the truth, and the light but that, by extension, every single other way was wrong and had to be destroyed. From the first century to the sixth, those who didn't fall into step with its beliefs were pursued in every possible way: social, legal, financial, and physical. Their altars were upturned and their temples demolished, their statues hacked to pieces, and their priests killed. It was an annihilation. Authoritative, vividly written, and utterly compelling, this is a remarkable debut from a brilliant young historian.

Dark Age Ahead

Author: Jane Jacobs
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307425452
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
In this indispensable book, urban visionary Jane Jacobs argues that as agrarianism gives way to a technology-based future, we’re at risk of cultural collapse. Jacobs—renowned author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities and The Economy of Cities—pinpoints five pillars of our culture that are in serious decay: community and family; higher education; the effective practice of science; taxation, and government; and the self-regulation of the learned professions. The corrosion of these pillars, Jacobs argues, is linked to societal ills such as environmental crisis, racism, and the growing gulf between rich and poor. But this is a hopeful book as well as a warning. Drawing on a vast frame of reference—from fifteenth-century Chinese shipbuilding to Ireland’s cultural rebirth—Jacobs suggests how the cycles of decay can be arrested and our way of life renewed. Invigorating and accessible, Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacobs’ career, but one of the most important works of our time.

Hypatia

Author: Edward J. Watts
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190210044
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
A philosopher, mathematician, and martyr, Hypatia is one of antiquity's best known female intellectuals. During the sixteen centuries following her murder, by a mob of Christians, Hypatia has been remembered in books, poems, plays, paintings, and films as a victim of religious intolerance whose death symbolized the end of the Classical world. But Hypatia was a person before she was a symbol. Her great skill in mathematics and philosophy redefined the intellectual life of her home city of Alexandria. Her talent as a teacher enabled her to assemble a circle of dedicated male students. Her devotion to public service made her a force for peace and good government in a city that struggled to maintain trust and cooperation between pagans and Christians. Despite these successes, Hypatia fought countless small battles to live the public and intellectual life that she wanted. This book rediscovers the life Hypatia led, the unique challenges she faced as a woman who succeeded spectacularly in a man's world, and the tragic story of the events that led to her tragic murder.

The Dark Age

Author: Don Handfield
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1954167032
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 96

Book Description
When civilization collapses a father must try and repair his relationship with his children while fighting to keep them alive. In the near future all metal on earth suddenly turns to worthless piles of rust and dust. With no technology, no guns, no computers, humanity reverts to a violent feudal system. Each pocket of civilization is ruled by knights of wood & glass & concrete. This is the new Dark Age.

New Dark Age

Author: James Bridle
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786635496
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Book Description
From the highly acclaimed author of WAYS OF BEING. We live in times of increasing inscrutability. Our news feeds are filled with unverified, unverifiable speculation, much of it automatically generated by anonymous software. As a result, we no longer understand what is happening around us. Underlying all of these trends is a single idea: the belief that quantitative data can provide a coherent model of the world, and the efficacy of computable information to provide us with ways of acting within it. Yet the sheer volume of information available to us today reveals less than we hope. Rather, it heralds a new Dark Age: a world of ever-increasing incomprehension. In his brilliant new work, leading artist and writer James Bridle offers us a warning against the future in which the contemporary promise of a new technologically assisted Enlightenment may just deliver its opposite: an age of complex uncertainty, predictive algorithms, surveillance, and the hollowing out of empathy. Surveying the history of art, technology and information systems he reveals the dark clouds that gather over discussions of the digital sublime.

Heretic

Author: Catherine Nixey
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 035865288X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
"A brilliant book—sometimes frightening, occasionally funny, frequently unsettling and always a thrill to read. It probes painfully into the pathology of belief." — The Times From a celebrated classicist and author of The Darkening Age (“[a] ballista-bolt of a book”—New York Times Book Review), a biography of the many, diverse variations of Jesus who thrived in early Christian traditions—and how they were lost until just one “true” Christ survived. Contrary to the teachings of the church today, in the first several centuries of Christianity’s existence, there was no consensus as to who Jesus was or why he had mattered. Instead, there were many different Christs. One had a twin brother and traveled to India; another consorted with dragons. One particularly terrifying Christ scorned his parents and killed those who opposed him. Moreover, in the early years of the first millennium there were many other saviors, many sons of gods who healed the sick and cured the lame. But as Christianity spread, they were pronounced unacceptable – even heretical – and they faded from view. Heretic unearths the different versions of Christ who existed in the minds of early Christians, and the process of evolution—and elimination—by which Jesus became the singular figure we know today.

Dark Age

Author: Pierce Brown
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1473646758
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 849

Book Description
SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER ***The explosive fifth novel in the Red Rising Series*** The Number One New York Times bestselling author of Morning Star returns to the Red Rising universe with the thrilling sequel to Iron Gold. He broke the chains Then broke the world.... A decade ago Darrow led a revolution, and laid the foundations for a new world. Now he's an outlaw. Cast out of the very Republic he founded, with half his fleet destroyed, he wages a rogue war on Mercury. Outnumbered, outgunned but not out thought. Is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will he become the agent of the world's destruction? Is it time for another legend to take his place? Lysander au Lune, the displaced heir to the old empire, has returned to the Core. First he must survive Gold backstabbing, then Darrow. Will he bring peace to mankind at the edge of his sword? And on Luna, Mustang, the embattled sovereign of the Republic, must save both democracy and her exiled husband millions of kilometres away. The only thing certain in the Solar System is treachery. And that the Rising is entering a new Dark Age. PRAISE FOR THE RED RISING SERIES: 'Pierce Brown's empire-crushing debut is a sprawling vision . . . Ender, Katniss, and now Darrow' - Scott Sigler, New York Times bestselling author of Pandemic '[A] top-notch debut novel . . . Red Rising ascends above a crowded dystopian field' - USA Today '[A] spectacular adventure . . . one heart-pounding ride . . . Pierce Brown's dizzyingly good debut novel evokes The Hunger Games, Lord of the Flies, and Ender's Game. . . . [Red Rising] has everything it needs to become meteoric' - Entertainment Weekly

Astro City

Author: Kurt Busiek
Publisher: Wildstorm
ISBN: 9781401220778
Category : Astro City (Imaginary place)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A witty portrait of life in a metropolis inhabited by super-powered heroes and villains, the critically acclaimed ASTRO CITY: LOCAL HEROES offers a realistic portrayal of the effect that these supernatural beings would have on the lives of ordinary humans. Told through the eyes and experiences of regular people, this enthralling volume includes tales of a woman's tragic attempt to expose a hero's true identity, a young lawyer's resourceful arguments to save his super-villain client, and a powerless doorman's act of selfless heroism.

The Coming Dark Age

Author: Roberto Vacca
Publisher: Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday
ISBN: 9780385063401
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description

The Myth of Persecution

Author: Candida Moss
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062104543
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Book Description
In The Myth of Persecution, Candida Moss, a leading expert on early Christianity, reveals how the early church exaggerated, invented, and forged stories of Christian martyrs and how the dangerous legacy of a martyrdom complex is employed today to silence dissent and galvanize a new generation of culture warriors. According to cherished church tradition and popular belief, before the Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal in the fourth century, early Christians were systematically persecuted by a brutal Roman Empire intent on their destruction. As the story goes, vast numbers of believers were thrown to the lions, tortured, or burned alive because they refused to renounce Christ. These saints, Christianity's inspirational heroes, are still venerated today. Moss, however, exposes that the "Age of Martyrs" is a fiction—there was no sustained 300-year-long effort by the Romans to persecute Christians. Instead, these stories were pious exaggerations; highly stylized rewritings of Jewish, Greek, and Roman noble death traditions; and even forgeries designed to marginalize heretics, inspire the faithful, and fund churches. The traditional story of persecution is still taught in Sunday school classes, celebrated in sermons, and employed by church leaders, politicians, and media pundits who insist that Christians were—and always will be—persecuted by a hostile, secular world. While violence against Christians does occur in select parts of the world today, the rhetoric of persecution is both misleading and rooted in an inaccurate history of the early church. Moss urges modern Christians to abandon the conspiratorial assumption that the world is out to get Christians and, rather, embrace the consolation, moral instruction, and spiritual guidance that these martyrdom stories provide.