Dominion (Tom Holland book)

Tom Holland has previously written several historical studies on Rome, Greece, Persia and Islam, including Rubicon, Persian Fire, and In the Shadow of the Sword.[9] According to Holland, over the course of writing about the "apex predators" of the ancient world, particularly the Romans, "I came to feel they were increasingly alien, increasingly frightening to me".[10] "The values of Leonidas, whose people had practised a peculiarly murderous form of eugenics and trained their young to kill uppity Untermenschen by night, were nothing that I recognised as my own; nor were those of Caesar, who was reported to have killed a million Gauls, and enslaved a million more."[1] This led him to investigate the process of change leading to today, concluding "in almost every way, what makes us distinctive today reflects the influence over two thousand years of the Christian story".[10]

Prefiguring the book, in 2016 Holland penned an essay in the New Statesman describing how he was "wrong about Christianity".[11][12]

In Holland's view, pre-Christian societies and deities, such as in the Greco-Roman world, tended to focus on and glorify strength, might and power; this was inverted with the spread of Christianity, which proclaimed the primacy of the weak and suffering.[13] Humanism, instead of springing from ancient Greek philosophy or Enlightenment thinking, "derives ultimately from claims made in the Bible: that humans are made in God's image; that his Son died equally for everyone; that there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female."[4] The concept of human rights and equality, as well as solidarity with the weak against the strong, Holland argues, ultimately derive from the theology built on the teachings of Jesus and Paul the Apostle.[4]

The success of what he calls the "Christian revolution" in changing our sensibilities, Holland argues, is evident in how complete its central claims now are taken for granted by "believers, atheists and those who never paused so much as to think about religion".[14] Holland also argues that many of those who clearest recognized the "radical" implications of Christianity, and its departure from earlier morality, were those fundamentally opposed to it – including Friedrich Nietzsche, the Marquis de Sade and the Nazi Party.[4][14]

Terry Eagleton, writing for The Guardian, described the book as "an absorbing survey of Christianity's subversive origins and enduring influence" and an "illuminating study", concluding "Holland is surely right to argue that when we condemn the moral obscenities committed in the name of Christ, it is hard to do so without implicitly invoking his own teaching."[3] The Economist also reviewed the book favorably, calling Holland a "superb writer", though also writing that "his theory has flaws", and that "correlation is not causation".[13] Samuel Moyn, writing for the Financial Times, similarly stated that "Holland shines in his panoramic survey of how disruptive Christianity was for the ethical and political assumptions that preceded it", though also criticizing how "the illustration of the conquest of the west by Christianity risks becoming so total that it explains everything and nothing."[15]

Peter Thonemann, writing for the Wall Street Journal, called Dominion "an immensely powerful and thought-provoking book", stating "it is hard to think of another that so effectively and readably summarizes the major strands of Christian ethical and political thought across two millennia". At the same time, he criticized it as selective, writing "Mr. Holland postulates a golden thread of Nice Christianity ... this argument — that everything Nice in our contemporary world derives from Christian values, and everything Nasty in the actual history of Christendom was just a regrettable diversion from the true Christian path — seems to me to run dangerously close to apologetic".[1] The Los Angeles Review of Books stated that "Dominion's most important contribution is in emphasizing how terms we take for granted, even concepts seemingly as fundamental as 'religion' and 'secular,' come 'freighted with the legacy of Christendom'", stating that his argument about the Christian origin of "human rights, socialism, revolution, feminism, science, and even the division between religion and the secular" is carried out in a "mostly convincing way".[7]

Jonathan Sumption, writing for The Spectator, opined the book was "sustained with all the breadth, originality and erudition that we have come to associate with Holland’s writing."[16] Philosopher John Gray, writing for the New Statesman, called Dominion "a masterpiece of scholarship and storytelling".[17]

It was also favorably reviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald,[14] The Critic,[18] the New Yorker,[8] and Kirkus Reviews who called it "an insightful argument that Christian ethics, even when ignored, are the norm worldwide."[19] In a mixed review, Gerard DeGroot, writing for The Sunday Times, wrote that "while I don't remotely accept Holland's thesis, I have to commend the originality of this book, not to mention his brave ambition."[20]

Philosopher A. C. Grayling has rejected Holland's interpretation of Christianity's influence on modern morality,[21][22] meeting Tom Holland for debate on the subject.[12][23]