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Title: A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0-684-81503-6 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: May, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.72 (18 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent work by Johnson, historian and mistress-spanker
Comment: Paul Johnson is easily the best pop-historian writing today. He's so good, his books almost qualify as serious academics- really the only thing that keeps them "popular" literature is their astonishingly ambitious scope, far too wide to facilitate truly serious study. But it is this breadth of scope which I love most about them. Johnson writes these sweeping studies of peoples, movements and centuries that provide a framework for understanding that is simply invaluable. In his History of Christianity, he has done it again.
I've heard that Johnson is Roman Catholic, but he doesn't come across that way in his book. He's very unbiased toward any one tradition. But that's not to say he's an impartial observer. He alternately lambastes and praises almost every major figure in church history from Augustine to John Calvin to the spineless Pius XII.
The narrative is constructed as a tension between the forces of humanism in the church, and the more conservative elements. Both sides have had their problems, often springing from dogmatism and overzealous application of their own philosophies to the lives of others, through the instrument of the state. Of all the personalities treated in the book, his favorite seems to be Erasmus, who he sees as almost the ideal Christian- intellectual, but with conviction, open-minded, but with a foundation for his thought.
There's not much pre-A.D. history provided as background in the book, but this doesn't detract from the quality of the history that is given. I assume that A History of Christianity takes up where Johnson's History of the Jews left off, so I plan on reading it before long. My only real regrets about this book are that it doesn't deal more with the Eastern Orthodox church and that it ends in 1970. I'm also interested in reading an academic study of American fundamentalism, a movement which I find fascinating in its strangeness, although Johnson only touches on it briefly here. I'd highly recommend A History of Christianity to anyone with even a passing interest in church history. The context it provides for further study is invaluable and the book, although a long read, is a delight.
Rating: 3
Summary: Who is Paul Johnson?
Comment: "The History of Christianity", written in 1975 by the British scholar Paul Johnson, tries to convince the reader about what in the author's (biased) view are the deeply corrupted foundations of Christianity since the time of Saint John the Baptist and Jesus himself, given the influence and recurrence of Jewish traditions prevalent at the time, and later on and most specially in the periods of Catholic persecution in the first A.D centuries of the Roman Empire, at the time of Saints Paul and Peter who survived the martyrdom of Christ, and many others martyrs who were to follow and were persecuted ignominously by the pagan Empire; notwhitstanding the author efforts, in the end, the reader has the impression that all the massive historic evidence grouped by him against a pure formative basis of Catholic thinking and practice, is as unconvincing as any prejudiced effort made by any Church antagonist as him. Saint Augustine, for instance, one of the doctors of Christianity, is pillored as a forerunner of the Holy Inquisition in Spain and all his positive personal traits are read upside down by Paul Johnson, who sees everything in him with a tainted sight, portraying Augustine as a devilish person with no morals whatsoever.
A file of martyrs and saints is defiled due to this distorted vision and the reader is almost convinced that nothing is left out of the catholic church tradition which deserves praise, being the catholic institution just the natural heiress of an opressive and bureaucratic (Roman) empire only intent on controlling human beings and their properties for the sake of attaining material wealth and indiscriminate power. But all the prejudiced efforts of the author crumble to the ground when one has the feeling that the bias with which he treats all religious matters is only the sheer inheritance of someone with a puritanical view intent on demolishing the liturgy of the catholic church, thus sacrificing the ceremonial aspects inherited by modernity and leaving nothing on its place. The absence of a complete bio of the author is conspicuous (who is him?, what is his personal creed?, in what he believes in?) and demonstrates that the author's goal is the sheer destruction of the catholic building, leaving nothing in its place.
Rating: 3
Summary: Entertaining but too opinionated
Comment: To be entertaining sometimes you have to be provocative and simplistic and this book is rarely boring. To those who like their history to be balanced, however, this book will disappoint. In his History of America, Johnson tries to stir the pot with his lavish praise of Nixon and utter condemnation of Kennedy. Here, Johnson will again condemn a movement based on a couple of stupid if entertaining, letters written by some of the less intelligent adherents but rarely takes a serious, balanced look. I've always believed that to defeat an opposing argument you have to put it in the strongest possible form. Otherwise you are just preaching to the choir. However, to entertain you make the other view look foolish and poke fun. Johnson is an entertainer.
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Title: A History of the Jews by Paul M. Johnson ISBN: 0060915331 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 14 September, 1988 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: A History of the American People by Paul M. Johnson ISBN: 0060930349 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 March, 1999 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Intellectuals by Paul M. Johnson ISBN: 0060916575 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 11 April, 1990 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Modern Times Revised Edition : World from the Twenties to the Nineties, The by Paul M. Johnson ISBN: 0060935502 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 07 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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Title: The Renaissance : A Short History by Paul Johnson ISBN: 0812966198 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 06 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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