Archive

The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present by ronald hutton yale, 376 pages, $30 In 1768, John Wesley expressed concern about the decline of...

From Every Tribe and Nation: A Historian’s Discovery of the Global Christian Story by mark a. noll baker, 224 pages, $19.99 In 1900, over 80 percent of Christians lived...

The British newspaper  The Independent  has an article by Matthew Bell on the  Alpha Course , which it describes, interestingly, as “British Christianity’s biggest success story.” Being the  Independent...

Felices Pascuas ,  Joyeuses Pâques ,  Buona Pasqua ,  Glad Påsk . . . Around the world, Christians use very similar words to wish each other a  happy Easter...

I posted recently  about the network of small states that existed between the Roman and Persian empires, the two superpowers of Late Antiquity. Most of these buffer states are...

This year more than most, March 21 is a date of multiple significance in the Church of England. You might justly ask whether the English church still matters much...

This weekend, many millions of people around the world will commemorate St. Patrick as a symbol of Irish national pride. I intend no slight whatever to that national consciousness,...

Some years ago, I published  The Lost History of Christianity , which traced the early expansion of Christianity into Asia and Africa, as well as Europe. For perhaps a...

March 1 is the feast of  David , the early medieval bishop and missionary who became patron saint of Wales. We actually know strikingly little of David apart from...

Gregory Clark’s A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World is not quite as bad as either its author or publisher try to make it. As...

If the Ministry of Truth had devoted their full attention to obliterating the memory of Harry Sylvester, his elimination from the public consciousness could not have been more total....

Though prophecy rarely lends itself to empirical verification, one exception might be an observation of St. Vincent de Paul’s, writing about the year 1640. This was one of the...

Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality By Leigh Eric Schmidt HarperSanFrancisco, 352 pages, $26.95 Where two or three Americans are gathered, they will sooner or later discuss religion....

Human Accomplishment:  the Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 BC to 1950.by Charles Murray.Harper Collis.  668 pp. $29.95 Charles Murray has an admirable penchant for tackling...

In recent years, the decade of the 1960s has become a popular subject for courses in university history departments. Since humanities professors tilt well to the left, it is...