A Book of the Year in the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the Observer, and BBC History Magazine
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Winner of the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award for Nonfiction
"Nixey has done an impressive job of illuminating an important aspect of late-antique Christianity." —Literary Review
"This book uncovers what was lost when Christianity won, a delightful book about destruction and despair... Comfortable assumptions about Christian progress come tumbling down." —The Times
"The Darkening Age rattles along at a tremendous pace, and Nixey brilliantly evokes all that was lost with the waning of the classical world." —The Sunday Times
"Nixey is a funny, lively, readable guide through this dark world of religious oppression." —New Statesman
In The Darkening Age, Catherine Nixey tells the little-known - and deeply shocking - story of how a militant religion deliberately tried to extinguish the teachings of the Classical world, ushering in unquestioning adherence to the 'one true faith'.
The Roman Empire had been generous in embracing and absorbing new creeds. But with the coming of Christianity, everything changed. This new faith, despite preaching peace, was violent, ruthless and intolerant. And once it became the religion of empire, its zealous adherents set about the destruction of the old gods. Their altars were upturned, their temples demolished and their statues hacked to pieces. Books, including great works of philosophy and science, were consigned to the pyre. It was an annihilation.