"The First Thousand Years"

The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (Robert Wilken)

Exactly What It Says on the Tin. This is a great book for bible/history nerds (cough), starting with Jesus evangelizing and ending, well, you can probably guess from the title. This is one of those books I enjoyed but find hard to recommend; Telling people "Wait until you get to the chapter about early Christianity spreading to Armenia!" usually does not have the intended effect of conveying enjoyment. That being said, I did really enjoy this book, and found the author's contention that the church's history in the middle of the first millennium should be viewed not as a traditional western Latin / eastern embryonic Orthodox duality, but instead as a triad adding the forgotten far eastern church, to be quite interesting and persuasive. That sentence right there should also tell you all you need to know about whether or not this book is for you.

Grade: A