Foi com um sentimento de frustração que cheguei ao fim deste livro - de um autor desta temática, tão prestigiado quanto Peter Brown, esperava mais.
A obra não sendo uma interpretação histórica, pois carece de sentido, deve ser enquadrada como livro de História. Nesta medida, falta-lhe esqueleto - subtítulos, secções, etc, que enquadrem o texto.
A tradução tem lacunas que por vezes são bem evidentes, o que permite supor a existência de outros erros com origem na tradução. Mesmo assim, aquele que é o principal ponto negativo da obra -a falta de esqueleto - não é explicável apenas por uma tradução defeituosa, sendo responsabilidade do autor. ( )

Interesting topic, fairly dry presentation. ( )

This tenth anniversary revised edition of the authoritative text on Christianity s first thousand years of history features a new preface, additional color images, and an updated bibliography. The essential general survey of medieval European Christendom, Brown s vivid prose charts the compelling and tumultuous rise of an institution that came to wield enormous religious and secular power. Clear and vivid history of Christianity s rise and its pivotal role in the making of Europe Written by the celebrated Princeton scholar who originated of the field of study known as late antiquity Includes a fully updated bibliography and index ( )

This book offers a vivid, compelling history of the first thousand years of Christianity. For the second edition, the book has been thoroughly rewritten and expanded. It includes two new chapters, as well as an extensive preface in which the author reflects on the scholarly traditions which have influenced his work and explains his current thinking about the book's themes. New edition of the popular account of the first 1000 years of Christianity. Thoroughly rewritten, with an extensive new preface of author's current thinking. Includes new maps, a substantial bibliography, and numerous chronological tables.
------------------------------------------
Editorial Reviews

"Most scholars would have been content to let a book as fine as the first edition of The Rise of Western Christendom rest on its laurels. Not so Peter Brown. He has taken note of the recent outburst of scholarship in this field, and has produced a yet richer work, which, with its extended notes and bibliography, will prove to be a mine for scholars and students for years to come." Ian Wood, University of Leeds.

"This outstanding revision of The Rise of Western Christendom will make this the book for the next generation and will stimulate countless revisions of long-accepted interpretations of the period 400-1000." Thomas F. X. Noble, University of Notre Dame

"[The first edition] was a historical masterpiece before. But the author's mind has moved on: The second edition contains further development, has filled out a great deal of detail, revised much in the light of more recent work, and, especially, has made it very much more useful for serious students by providing references and notes." Robert Markus, University of Nottingham

"A new book by Peter Brown always makes my heart beat faster...The addition of a dazzling range of new scholarly material makes the book a far more thorough treatment...My students will be reading it." Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"In the second edition of his The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, AD 200-1000, Brown sets shimmering fragments of historical insight into a mosaic that is all the more splendid for its well-judged architecture, resulting in what may come to stand as the most satisfying contribution of an unusually distinguished career. With time, The Rise of Western Christendom may emerge as a milestone in the search for an account of the fall of Rome that genuinely breaks free of Gibbon's spell." Kate Cooper, Times Literary Supplement.

"With its dexterous and confident handling of an array of subjects and disciplines, and its exhaustive and detailed endnotes and bibliography, this book has encapsulated and synthesized a burgeoning field of scholarship at the point of perhaps its greatest creativity and imagination" The Atlantic Monthly

"The Rise of Western Christendom is a work of uncommon originality, prodigious learning, and literary grace." Robert Louis Wilken, National Review

"It is an astonishing story, told in a way that keeps general themes clearly in sight while lovingly attending to the particularities of people, practices and beliefs" First Choice.

Brown remains the consummate historian of Late Antiquity, the period which he pioneered. It cannot be denied that he does not deal with physical and archaeological evidence. However, what his work does cover, culture, society, and to some degree intellectual history, is of the highest quality. While some argue that his conclusions are incompatible with the physical evidence that portrays decline and destruction, I am of the opinion that Brown is simply asking and answering different questions; his work deals with ideas and how people saw the world around them, not necessarily the realities of the world around them. ( )