Rome's Age of Revolution

The compelling, provocative account of how the Christian religion conquered the Roman Empire and how Rome in turn shaped Christianity—it's the story of how religion and politics combined to lay the foundations for the Western world.

How did Christianity, starting out as a minor offshoot of Judaism, grow into an international faith that shaped the world as we know it? Rome's Age of Revolution corrects the triumphalist narrative that the Christian message was so persuasive, and indeed superior, that people converted in huge numbers, abandoning their pagan beliefs, thereby turning a small persecuted sect into the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Tim Whitmarsh shows that Christianity would never have succeeded if it had not taken advantage of the infrastructure and culture of the Roman Empire; in turn, the new religion was indelibly shaped and transformed by Roman beliefs and ideas, especially those circulating in the Greek-speaking, or Hellenistic, eastern parts of the empire. This radical transformation, Tim argues, can only be described as a revolution. The consequences are with us to this day.