Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom

Description

Of all the civilisations existing in the year 1000, that of Western Europe seemed the unlikeliest candidate for future greatness. Compared to the glittering empires of Byzantium or Islam, the splintered kingdoms on the edge of the Atlantic appeared impoverished, fearful and backward. But the anarchy of these years proved to be, not the portents of the end of the world, as many Christians had dreaded, but rather the birthpangs of a radically new order.MILLENNIUM is a stunning panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000. This was the age of Canute, William the Conqueror and Pope Gregory VII, of Vikings, monks and serfs, of the earliest castles and the invention of knighthood, and of the primal conflict between church and state. The story of how the distinctive culture of Europe - restless, creative and dynamic - was forged from out of the convulsions of these extraordinary times is as fascinating and as momentous as any in history.

Historian Tom Holland has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio. RUBICON was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2004, and PERSIAN FIRE won the Anglo-Hellenic League's Runciman Award 2006.

Praise for PERSIAN FIRE: ** 'It is a testament to Holland's superlative powers as a narrative historian that he brings this tumultuous, epoch-making period dazzlingly to life' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY ** 'Holland has a rare eye for the detail, drama and the telling anecdote ... A vibrant, bloodthirsty popular history, told with a rich sense of irony and irresistible narrative timing' DAILY TELEGRAPH