The Darkening Age

This book uncovers what was lost when Christianity won … a delightful book about destruction and despair. * The Times *Catherine Nixey has written a bold, dazzling and provocative book that challenges ideas about early Christianity and both how – and why – it spread so far and fast in its early days. Nixey is a witty and iconoclastic guide to a world that will be unfamiliar, surprising and troubling to many. – Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk RoadA searingly passionate book … Nixey writes up a storm. Each sentence is rich, textured, evocative, felt … Nixey delivers this ballista-bolt of a book with her eyes wide open and in an attempt to bring light as well as heat to the sad story of intellectual monoculture and religious intolerance – Bettany Hughes * New York Times *Superb – Richard DawkinsWith passion, wit and thunderous eloquence, Nixey throws everything she has against the bishops, monks and Christian emperors of late antiquity … The Darkening Age rattles along at a tremendous pace, and Nixey brilliantly evokes all that was lost with the waning of the classical world. * Sunday Times *A book for the 21st century … Nixey has a great story to tell, and she tells it exceptionally well. As one would expect from a distinguished journalist, every page is full of well-turned phrases that leap from the page … finely crafted, invigorating … [The Darkening Age] succeeds brilliantly. – Tim Whitmarsh * Guardian *Nixey is a funny, lively, readable guide through this dark world of religious oppression. – Emily Wilson * New Statesman *Clever, compelling … Readers raised in the milky Anglican tradition will be surprised to learn of the savagery of the early saints and their sledgehammer-swinging followers … exceptionally well written. – Thomas W. Hodgkinson * Spectator *Nixey has done an impressive job of illuminating an important aspect of late-antique Christianity. – Levi Roach * Literary Review *Engaging and erudite, Catherine Nixey’s book offers both a compelling argument and a wonderful eye for vivid detail. It shines a searching spotlight on to some of the murkiest aspects of the early medieval mindset. A triumph. – Edith Hall, author of The Ancient Greeks: Ten Ways They Shaped the Modern WorldNixey’s elegant and ferocious text paints a dark but riveting picture of life at the time of the ‘triumph’ of Christianity, reminding us not just of the realities of our own past, but also of the sad echoes of that past in our present. – Dr Michael ScottCaptivating and compulsive, Catherine Nixey’s debut challenges our whole understanding of Christianity’s earliest years and the medieval society that followed. A remarkable fusion of captivating narrative and acute scholarly judgment, this book marks the debut of a formidable classicist and historian. – Dan Jones, bestselling author of The PlantagenetsA devastating book, written in vivid, yet playful prose. Catherine Nixey reveals a level of intolerance and anti-intellectualism which which echoes today’s headlines but is centuries old. – Anita AnandPugnacious and energetically written * The Tablet *Sizzling, scintillating – Book of the Year * Spectator *

Catherine Nixey studied Classics at Cambridge and now works as a journalist at the Economist. Her writing has previously appeared in the Times, and the Financial Times, among others. She lives in England, with her husband. Her first book, The Darkening Age, was published in 2017 and was an international bestseller, and won a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award.