Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

'If great books encourage you to look at the world in an entirely new way, then Dominion is a very great book indeed . . .'

"Written with terrific learning, enthusiasm and good humour, Holland's book is not just supremely provocative, but often very funny" – Sunday Times History Book of the Year

Christianity is the most enduring and influential legacy of the ancient world, and its emergence represents the single most transformative development in Western history. Even those in the West today who have abandoned the faith of their forebears and dismiss all religion as pointless superstition remain recognisably its heirs.

• Seen close-up, the division between a sceptic and a believer may seem unbridgeable.
• Widen the focus, though, and Christianity's enduring impact upon the West becomes evident in surprising ways:
  • The emergence of science
  • Secularism
  • And yes, even atheism

Why Dominion Matters

This book places the story of how we came to be what we are, and how we think the way we do, in the broadest historical context.

• Time span: From the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC to the ongoing migration crisis in Europe today
• Figures explored: From Nebuchadnezzar to the Beatles

It examines:

• What made Christianity so revolutionary and disruptive
• How completely it saturated the mind-set of Latin Christendom
• Why, even in a West increasingly doubtful of religion's claims, many of its instincts remain irredeemably Christian

The Aim of Dominion

1. To help readers appreciate how novel and uncanny Christian teachings were when they first appeared in the world.
2. To make us, and all that we take for granted, appear similarly strange in consequence.

We stand at the end-point of an extraordinary transformation in the understanding of what it is to be human—one that can only be fully appreciated by tracing the arc of its parabola over millennia.