tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679Sun, 11 Oct 2026 22:39:04 +0000AgoraFall of the Roman EmpireVandalsbarbariansAlejandro AmenabarBryan Ward-PerkinsChris WickhamConstantineCyrilDark AgeDark AgesGothsGreat LibraryHypatiaJames J O'DonnellJames J. O'DonnellMedievalMedieval scienceOrestesRachel WeiszSerapeumTheodoricTheophilusatheism'AbbasidAdrian GoldsworthyAlexandriaAlmagestAnglo-SaxonAquinasArther FerrillByzantineCaliphateCarl SaganCharlemagneChristianityConflict ThesisDavid C. LindbergDiocletianEdward GibbonEdward GrantFifth CenturyFrankishFreemanGalileoGermanicGibbonGiordano BrunoHannamJustinianLate Roman EmpireMerovingianMiddle AgesNeo-PlatonismOstrogothicOstrogothsPeasant's RevoltPeter HeatherPtolemyTwelfh Century RenaissanceUmmayadVisigothicWestern Roman Empireastronomybarbarisationhumanismneo-paganpaganBook reviews and associated musings, mainly on ancient and medieval history, though sometimes on atheism, early Christianity and the odd sci-fi novel.http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)Blogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-7591875966493432581Sun, 03 Sep 2017 21:03:00 +00002017-09-04T07:03:38.987+10:00Hello, For those who have contacted me over the last couple of years asking if I will be adding more reviews to this blog, I'm afraid the answer is "no". &nbsp;Last year I began a new blog dedicated to correcting the bad history and pseudo history presented by many in the "New Atheism" movement. &nbsp;As an atheist myself, these distortions of history bother me and the fact that no other http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2017/09/new-blog-history-for-atheists.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-1034366760747090198Sun, 14 Sep 2014 01:03:00 +00002017-05-24T10:49:48.439+10:00 &nbsp; Nicola Griffith, Hild: A Novel, (Blackfriars, 2014) 560 pages, Verdict?: 4/5 An elegantly-written and vivid recreation of seventh century Northumbria. Until the mid-twentieth century, scholars regarded the Old English epic Beowulf as a work of fantasy.&nbsp; This was not just because it was a story with sea-monsters, trolls and a dragon in it, but also because the material world it http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2014/09/hild-novel-by-nicola-griffith.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-2943619118148748812Mon, 17 Mar 2014 19:40:00 +00002015-09-01T11:06:07.264+10:00 The Giordano Bruno Monument - Campo di Fiori, Rome - October 2013 <!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE <![endif]-->(I was invited to write a post on this subject by Thony Christie for his excellent history of science blog, The http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2014/03/cartoons-and-fables-how-cosmos-got.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-8969944631382426963Fri, 17 Jan 2014 18:15:00 +00002014-01-18T05:18:38.118+11:00 (A version of this article appeared on Quora, where it became the top-voted answer to the question "Do credible historians agree that the man named Jesus, who the Christian Bible speaks of, walked the earth and was put to death on a cross by Pilate, Roman governor of Judea?".&nbsp; In the year since I posted it there, it has been linked to and recommended on a variety of fora, but some http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2014/01/did-jesus-exist-jesus-myth-theory-again.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)77tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-2014478917624920188Sun, 01 Dec 2013 04:53:00 +00002015-08-14T14:35:40.995+10:00 "Never Argue with a Fanatic" A wise old former university lecturer of mine once advised me "Never argue with a fanatic."&nbsp; At the time I didn't understand.&nbsp; Given that I was a post-graduate student in my early twenties, I spent quite a bit of time arguing vigorously with all kinds of people, including Creationist and other fundamentalist Christian fanatics.&nbsp; And I&nbsp; had http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-jesus-myth-theory-reponse-to-david.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)95tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-5021825578927753597Wed, 30 Oct 2013 20:36:00 +00002013-11-03T07:41:55.727+11:00<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE <![endif]--> (This is a guest post I was invited to write for the atheist blog Deity Schmeity.&nbsp; Regular readers of Armarium Magnum or of my answers on Quora will recognise the general themeshttp://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2013/11/why-history-isnt-scientific-and-why-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-8999540686269602425Sat, 26 Jan 2013 23:17:00 +00002015-06-13T08:41:17.994+10:00 Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, (Norton, 2012) 368 pages Verdict?: 2/5 Never let history get in the way of a good Pulitzer Prize Back in 1931 a young Oxford don named Herbert Butterfield published a slim volume on historiography that almost no-one read and which virtually passed without review notice.&nbsp; Butterfield's book, which at a mere 80 or so http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2013/01/stephen-greenblatt-swerve-how-world.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)39tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-3284844755935632678Sun, 13 May 2012 04:21:00 +00002015-06-13T08:41:03.589+10:00 Alain de Botton, Religion for Atheists: A Non-believer's Guide to the Uses of Religion, (Hamish Hamilton/Pantheon, 2012) 320 pages Verdict?: 4/5 Insightful, eloquent thought-provoking and provocative If you want to annoy some atheists, go to an atheist online forum and say something nice about religion.&nbsp; It won't take much.&nbsp; You don't even have to be very complimentary - just say or http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2012/05/religion-for-atheists-non-believers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-655830173373000637Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:19:00 +00002016-06-18T07:04:32.871+10:00 Two years after its release, Amenábar's movie Agora is continuing to perpetuate some modern myths about the history of science.&nbsp; The latest person to swallow its fable-version of history is a geologist called Donald Prothero, who is one of a number of bloggers at Skepticblog and who has written a glowing review of the film entitled "Hypatia, Agora and Religion vs Science".&nbsp; Prothero http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2012/03/geologist-tries-history-or-agora-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-2123864779623615016Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:23:00 +00002015-06-13T08:40:36.304+10:00 Timothy Venning, If Rome Hadn't Fallen: How the Survival of Rome Might Have Changed World History,(Pen and Sword, 2011) 224 pages, Verdict?: 3/5 Interesting but ultimately unconvincing overall. My primary school's library carried a British weekly educational magazine called Look and Learn, which had articles on science, history and culture for kids, as well as short fiction and a few weekly http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2011/12/if-rome-hadnt-fallen-by-timothy-venning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-9143722503979208161Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:41:00 +00002015-06-13T08:40:12.534+10:00 Tom Holland, The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West , (Anchor, 2008) 512 pages, Verdict?: 4/5 An elegant and eloquent overview of a neglected turning point. When most people think of the Middle Ages they tend to have a Hollywood conception in mind - castles, knights, armour, damsels, monks etc - as well as the usual cliches about it being a "dark age", a http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2011/11/forge-of-christendom-end-of-days-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-2618649238282826166Fri, 27 May 2011 23:07:00 +00002015-06-13T08:39:43.719+10:00 David Fitzgerald, Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed at All, (Lulu.com, 2010) 246 pages, Verdict?: 0/5 A tragic waste of probably rather nice trees. Barely a day goes by without being reminded that the internet is revolutionising publishing.&nbsp; Record companies are struggling to compete with artists who can release music direct to the public, e-publishing teens are http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2011/05/nailed-ten-christian-myths-that-show.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)155tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-1130599479152622204Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:33:00 +00002015-06-13T08:39:15.589+10:00 Ian Hughes, Stilicho: The Vandal Who Saved Rome, (Pen and Sword, 2010) 282 pages, Verdict?: 4/5 A detailed analysis of a neglected figure in a pivotal moment in history. As a university student who undertook the rather odd enterprise of teaching himself extinct ancient Germanic languages, I was always on the lookout in second hand bookshops for books on Old English or, even better, Old Norse orhttp://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2011/03/stilicho-vandal-who-saved-rome-by-ian.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-3370284162825048155Fri, 21 Jan 2011 23:42:00 +00002011-01-22T15:01:51.480+11:00 The Author battles a dreaded Jesus Myther After a rather long hiatus, I'd like to apologise to those following this blog and other regulars for the last few months' radio silence.&nbsp; It was largely caused by a hard-drive crash that wiped out drafts of several reviews and an iPhone crash that wiped the notes I'd made while reading several other books (I do most of my reading while commuting,http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2011/01/apologies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-7325298392880883898Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:57:00 +00002015-06-13T08:38:41.863+10:00 Philip Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia--and How It Died, (HarperOne, 2008) 336 pages. Verdict?: 4/5 A fascinating overview of a neglected area of history. On January 7th, AD 781, around the time Charlemagne was in the process of converting the Saxons to Christianity by the sword and Islam first reached http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2011/01/lost-history-of-christianity-by-philip.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-1800844556625923968Sun, 30 May 2010 02:46:00 +00002013-06-23T07:36:32.305+10:00AgoraAlejandro AmenabarAlexandriaCyrilGreat LibraryOrestesRachel WeiszSerapeumTheophilus Redux Well, it's been just over a year since I wrote my article on Alejandro Amenábar's film Agora and expressed my misgivings that it would perpetuate some Gibbonian myths about how Hypatia of Alexandria was some kind of martyr for science, how wicked Christians destroyed "the Great Library of Alexandria" in AD 391 and how her murder and the Library's destruction ushered in the Dark http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2010/05/hypatia-and-agora-redux.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)183tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-1109696936130032685Fri, 14 May 2010 10:33:00 +00002015-06-13T08:31:34.519+10:00Rodney Stark, God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, (HarperOne, 2009) 276 pages. Verdict?: 2/5&nbsp; A few good correctives to modern myths, but badly marred by blatant bias, tendentious polemic and weak apologetics. It is a bit of a cliché that we should study the past to understand the present.&nbsp; This is something high school history teachers tell children to explain why it is http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2010/05/gods-battalions-case-for-crusades-by.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-3651299209533345878Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:43:00 +00002015-06-13T08:38:10.696+10:00Adrian GoldsworthybarbariansBryan Ward-PerkinsConstantineDiocletianFall of the Roman EmpireGothsJames J. O'DonnellPeter HeatherVandalsWestern Roman EmpireAdrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of the West: The Death of the Roman Superpower&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (Weidenfeld &amp; Nicolson, 2009) 531 pages Verdict?: 4/5 A compelling contribution in a closely-contested field. &nbsp;Those of us interested in the fall of the Roman Empire have had a surfeit of riches over the last five years.&nbsp; In 2005 we had both Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2010/02/fall-of-west-death-of-roman-superpower.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-8974985090953771126Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:10:00 +00002009-12-05T15:01:44.106+11:00One of the nice things about using Blogger as the basis for this blog is that I can use Google Analytics to track my traffic, see which posts are the most popular, trace referring sites and list which Google key words brought visitors to what parts of my blog. So far it's clear that the most popular (or, at least, most visited) post so far has been "Agora" and Hypatia - Hollywood Strikes Again, http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-mysteries.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-831054287564067728Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:12:00 +00002009-12-01T22:23:03.105+11:00We have a winner! As discussed below, when I ordered James Hannam's God's Philosophers from Amazon I somehow managed to end up with two copies. So I offered one as the prize in the inaugural and now (probably) annual "Armarium Magnum Essay Competition" with the book to be awarded to the best entry tackling the topic:"Christianity caused the Dark Ages: Discuss"So I am now pleased to announce http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/12/armarium-magnum-essay-competition.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-7033111513747084641Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:47:00 +00002024-08-15T06:04:01.357+10:00Conflict ThesisDark AgeDark AgesFreemanGalileoHannamhumanismMedievalMedieval scienceTwelfh Century Renaissance James Hannam, God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science (Icon Books, 2009) 320 pages Verdict?: A superb and long overdue popular treatment of Medieval science 5/5 My interest in Medieval science was substantially sparked by one book. Way back in 1991, when I was an impoverished and often starving post-graduate student at the University of Tasmania, I http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/10/gods-philosophers-how-medieval-world.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)53tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-1266938049288268802Sat, 26 Sep 2009 08:42:00 +00002009-09-27T09:16:06.001+10:00Yesterday I received a package from Amazon.co.uk which I knew would be my copy of James Hannam's long-awaited God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. On opening the package, however, I found to my surprise not one but two copies of Hannam's book. It seems that in my feverish excitement at finally getting my hands on a copy I accidentally ordered two http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/09/amarium-magnum-essay-competition.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-1475240336996640613Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:28:00 +00002015-06-13T08:37:37.310+10:00 Dan Jones, Summer of Blood: The Peasants Revolt of 1381 (HarperPress, 2009) 288 pages Verdict?: Excellent popular history 4/5 Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century (The Bodley Head, 2008) 341 pages Verdict?: A novel guide to social history 4/5 Peter Ackroyd, Chaucer (Vintage, 2005) 144 pages Verdict?: An excellent http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/09/four-books-on-fourteenth-century.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-7555875972997614228Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:23:00 +00002009-09-11T13:28:20.706+10:00This is just a quick post to apologise for the long silence on this blog. I won't bore you with the personal detail, but let's just say it's largely been due to the Global Economic Crisis generally and some of its repercussions on my life in particular. I'll try to make up for it by reviewing not one, not two, not three but four books in my next post.http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/09/hiatus.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6774463840913796679.post-254788387959247921Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:42:00 +00002016-11-02T10:42:28.181+11:00 Well, I did mention in my review of Charles Freeman's The Closing of the Western Mind (below) that he likes to respond to critics directly. Though I wasn't quite expecting a response by him within five days. Anyway, rather than reply in the "Comments" section of the review, I thought it was worth writing my reply as a separate post. Charles writes: Dear Tim,I have been put onto your http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/07/reply-from-charles-freeman-of-sorts.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Tim O'Neill)63