Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years

A celebration of two thousand years of Christianity, this wide-ranging and authoritative history starts with the birth of Jesus and maps out the broad sweep of the Christian religion as it has taken root in cultures and societies over five continents.

Why did Christianity triumph three hundred years after the crucifixion of its founder? What were the conditions that produced Byzantine Orthodoxy or the Reformations which convulsed the sixteenth century? What threads connect medieval Catholicism with the modern age? What is the significance, for the global Christianity of today, of the flowering of Christian traditions which are peculiarly American? Why does Christianity prosper in Africa while remaining a tiny minority in Asia? Why has Europe so largely rejected the church?

Lucidly and compellingly written, Christianity assumes no specialist knowledge. Brilliantly accessible to the general reader, it will be deeply satisfying to scholars and clergy, historians and the theologically educated. In looking back over a panorama of the past two millennia, Edwards's sensitive critique also contains a rare clarity of vision and a challenge for the future: What will the next two thousand years bring?