Dominion

Holland's argument is that the ancient world Christianity emerged into took for granted the opposite of what most modern people consider basic morality: strength, hierarchy, and domination were virtues, while weakness and suffering were shameful and largely beneath moral concern. Christianity inverted this hierarchy by insisting that the crucified, the enslaved, and the powerless carried the same dignity as anyone else because all people were made in the image of a God who had himself suffered and died in humiliation. Holland traces how this single inversion rippled outward for two thousand years, shaping ideas that later ages would insist were purely secular achievements — from the abolition of slavery to modern human rights language to concern for the marginalized.

Why this matters is Holland's real target: he thinks contemporary secular societies, including avowedly atheist and progressive movements, are unknowingly running on Christian moral software while believing they've discarded religion entirely. Rather than a triumphant story of reason liberating itself from faith, Holland presents a genealogy in which even the modern instinct to champion victims and denounce oppressors is itself a Christian reflex, inherited so thoroughly it no longer registers as religious at all.

Who should read it

Readers curious about where secular Western moral instincts actually come from, and anyone interested in a sweeping narrative history connecting antiquity to the present through the lens of religious ideas. It suits those open to a contrarian thesis challenging comfortable assumptions about the purely rational origins of modern ethics.

About the author

Tom Holland is a British historian and broadcaster known for popular narrative histories of antiquity and the classical and medieval worlds, including Rubicon and Persian Fire.