{"title":"Charles Freeman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCharles Freeman\u003c\/strong\u003e offers compelling explorations into the ancient world, blending rigorous historical analysis with engaging narrative. His works delve into the origins of early Christianity and the rich cultural tapestry of classical antiquity, inviting readers to reconsider familiar stories through fresh perspectives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a focus on \u003cem\u003eReligion \u0026amp; Spirituality\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Military\u003c\/em\u003e, Freeman's books illuminate the intersections of faith, power, and society in eras that shaped Western civilisation. Expect clear, insightful scholarship that is accessible to both enthusiasts and students of history alike.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-awakening-by-charles-freeman-9781789545630","title":"The Awakening","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA monumental and exhilarating history of European thought, from the fall of Rome in the fifth century AD to the Scientific Revolution thirteen centuries later. \u003ci\u003eThe Awakening\u003c\/i\u003e traces the recovery and refashioning of Europe's classical heritage from the ruins of the Roman Empire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe process of preservation of surviving texts, fragile at first, was strengthened under the Christian empire founded by Charlemagne in the eighth century; later, during the High Middle Ages, universities were founded and the study of philosophy was revived. Renewed interest in ancient Greek and Roman thought provided the intellectual impetus for the Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, whose ideas – aesthetic, political and scientific – were disseminated across Europe by the invention of the printing press.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEqually momentous was Europe's encounter with the New World, and the resulting maritime supremacy which conferred global reach on Europe's merchants and colonists.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eVivid in detail and informed by the latest scholarship, \u003ci\u003eThe Awakening\u003c\/i\u003e is powered not by the fate of kings or the clash of arms but by deeper currents of thought, inquiry and discovery, which first recover and then surpass the achievements of classical antiquity, and lead the West to the threshold of the Age of Reason. Charles Freeman takes the reader on an enthralling journey and provides us with a vital key to understanding the world we live in today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eThe Awakening\u003c\/i\u003e:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'The subject of this stimulating and erudite book is nothing less than the development of the Western mind from the demise of classical civilisation in the fifth century AD, through the Middle Ages and Renaissance, to the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. \u003ci\u003eThe Awakening\u003c\/i\u003e is a work of serious scholarship by an author who has clearly been everywhere, seen everything and read voraciously. But it is also a work written with great elan and, given its scope, undertaken with considerable courage... An arrestingly clear design, combined with numerous judiciously chosen illustrations, completes an extraordinary achievement' \u003cb\u003eChristopher Lloyd, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, 1988-2005\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'\u003ci\u003eThe Awakening\u003c\/i\u003e recounts the slow evolution of Western thought that restored legitimacy to independent examination and analysis, that eventually led to a celebration, albeit a cautious one, of reason over blind faith. In the process, Freeman reminds us that quality, engaging narrative history has not gone extinct, while demonstrating that it is possible to produce a work that is so well-written it is readable by a general audience while meeting the rigorous standards of scholarship demanded by academia' \u003cb\u003eStan Prager\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'\u003ci\u003eThe Awakening\u003c\/i\u003e is a very timely book and an excellently written and produced one. Freeman is a good host, a superb narrator and tells his story with aplomb... His elegant prose is a treat for the mind and the accompanying illuminations a treat for the eye' \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eInternational Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46849992851692,"sku":"9781789545630","price":69.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/3899553482825.jpg?v=1759073203"},{"product_id":"the-children-of-athena-by-charles-freeman-9781803281964","title":"The Children of Athena","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe remarkable story of how Greek-speaking writers and thinkers sustained and developed the intellectual legacy of Classical Greece under the rule of Rome.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 146 BC, Greece yielded to the military might of the Roman Republic. Some sixty years later, when Athens and other Greek city-states rebelled against Rome, the general Lucius Cornelius Sulla destroyed the city of Socrates and Plato, laying waste the famous Academy where Aristotle had studied.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHowever, the traditions of Greek cultural life would continue to flourish—across the eastern Mediterranean world and beyond—during the centuries of Roman rule that followed, in the lives and work of a distinguished array of philosophers, rhetoricians, historians, doctors, scientists, geographers, and theologians.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCharles Freeman's accounts of such luminaries as the polymathic physician Galen, the soldier-botanist Dioscorides, the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy, and the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus are interwoven with 'interludes' that counterpoint and contextualise a sequence of unjustly neglected and richly influential lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the story of a vibrant, constantly evolving tradition of intellectual inquiry across a period of more than five hundred years, from the second century BC to the start of the fifth century AD—one that would help shape the intellectual landscape of the Middle Ages and long after. \u003cem\u003eThe Children of Athena\u003c\/em\u003e is a cultural history on an epic scale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46850010185964,"sku":"9781803281964","price":24.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/833943482830.jpg?v=1759074740"},{"product_id":"a-new-history-of-early-christianity-by-charles-freeman-9780300170832","title":"A New History of Early Christianity","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThis stimulating history of early Christianity revisits the extraordinary birth of a world religion and gives a new slant on a familiar story.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe relevance of Christianity is as hotly contested today as it has ever been. \u003cem\u003eA New History of Early Christianity\u003c\/em\u003e shows how our current debates are rooted in the many controversies surrounding the birth of the religion and the earliest attempts to resolve them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCharles Freeman’s meticulous historical account of Christianity, from its birth in Judaea in the first century A.D. to the emergence of Western and Eastern churches by A.D. 600, reveals that it was a distinctive, vibrant, and incredibly diverse movement brought into order at the cost of intellectual and spiritual vitality. Against the conventional narrative of the inevitable “triumph” of a single distinct Christianity, Freeman shows that there was a host of competing Christianities, many of which had as much claim to authenticity as those that eventually dominated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLooking with fresh eyes at the historical record, Freeman explores the ambiguities and contradictions that underlay Christian theology and the unavoidable compromises enforced in the name of doctrine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTracing the astonishing transformation that the early Christian church underwent—from sporadic niches of Christian communities surviving in the wake of a horrific crucifixion to sanctioned alliance with the state—Charles Freeman shows how freedom of thought was curtailed by the development of the concept of faith. The imposition of \"correct belief,\" religious uniformity, and an institutional framework that enforced orthodoxy were both consolidating and stifling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUncovering the difficulties in establishing the Christian church, he examines its relationship with Judaism, Gnosticism, Greek philosophy, and Greco-Roman society, and he offers dramatic new accounts of Paul, the resurrection, and the church fathers and emperors.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47429798035692,"sku":"9780300170832","price":30.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780300170832.jpg?v=1774559913"},{"product_id":"holy-bones-holy-dust-by-charles-freeman-9780300184303","title":"Holy Bones, Holy Dust","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA richly textured history spanning a thousand years of holy relics across Europe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRelics were everywhere in medieval society. Saintly morsels such as bones, hair, teeth, blood, milk, and clothes, and items like the Crown of Thorns, coveted by Louis IX of France, were thought to bring the believer closer to the saint, who might intercede with God on his or her behalf. In the first comprehensive history in English of the rise of relic cults, Charles Freeman takes readers on a vivid, fast-paced journey from Constantinople to the northern Isles of Scotland over the course of a millennium.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eHoly Bones, Holy Dust\u003c\/i\u003e, Freeman illustrates that the pervasiveness and variety of relics answered very specific needs of ordinary people across a darkened Europe under threat of political upheavals, disease, and hellfire. But relics were not only venerated—they were traded, collected, lost, stolen, duplicated, and destroyed. They were bargaining chips, good business and good propaganda, politically appropriated across Europe, and even used to wield military power. Freeman examines an expansive array of relics, showing how the mania for these objects deepens our understanding of the medieval world and why these relics continue to capture our imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47596588695788,"sku":"9780300184303","price":47.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/e7e3bfa74c31261afa1d863ea3dd11d0.jpg?v=1777940981"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/charles-freeman.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}