# Dominion *By Tom Holland. London: Little, Brown, 2019; New York: Basic Books, 29 October 2019, as* Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World*. A popular history of what was revolutionary about Christianity, told in 21 episodes from 479 BC to AD 2015. Holland argues that the worship of a man executed by the punishment kept for slaves overturned the ancient world's values, and that the modern West, believers and unbelievers alike, is still "utterly saturated by Christian assumptions": the idea that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering, that every life has equal worth, and even supposedly secular ideas such as human rights, liberalism, science and secularism itself.* > **What I actually read.** The book is in copyright and there is no legal free copy. The Internet Archive scan (`dominionhowchris0000holl`, US 2019) is for print-disabled readers only, and Open Library search-inside found nothing in it. What I used: > - **The full contents with page numbers** (Syndetics/Ingram, US hardback). > - **Holland's own chapter-by-chapter preview** (his August 2019 Twitter thread, via Thread Reader), which gives each chapter's opening scene in his words. > - The publisher's description, the *Publishers Weekly* and *Library Journal* reviews (Syndetics), the Wikipedia articles on the book and on Holland (with their review quotations), and the transcript opening of his 2019 debate with A. C. Grayling. > > I did **not** read the book. The outline gives each chapter's opening episode as Holland describes it, and the chapter's broader theme only where a review or the publisher states it. Anything beyond that is marked unconfirmed. Related in this vault: the source video [[Video Summaries/Nils Glenn/Our Understanding of Jesus Just Changed]]. The video also cites Nietzsche's *The Antichrist*, which is next in the queue. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind* (UK); *Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World* (US) | | Author | Tom Holland (born 1968), British historian, novelist and podcaster | | UK first edition | London: Little, Brown, 2019. Hardback ISBN 978-1-4087-0695-4, 624 pp. (Open Library); ebook 978-1-4087-0696-1. Abacus/Little, Brown paperback 2020, ISBN 978-0-349-14120-6 (later printing 978-0-349-14527-3, 2023) | | US first edition | New York: Basic Books, 29 Oct 2019. Hardback ISBN 978-0-465-09350-2; contents run Preface p. 1 to Index p. 593. LCCN 2019948347; OCLC 1085635440. Kindle print length 564 pp. (ASIN B07NCY9RG9). Paperback, Basic Books, 23 Mar 2021, ISBN 978-1-5416-7559-9. US cover art by Salvador Dalí (Wikipedia) | | Audiobook | **Yes, unabridged, read by Tom Holland.** Hachette Audio (US) 29 Oct 2019 (Apple Books: 22 h 18 min); Hachette Audio UK 2019; Hachette Audio re-release 1 July 2025, 23 h 30 min (Audible US B0FG3FL38W). One Apple Books reviewer (Nov 2026) says only the preface is in Holland's voice. I could not check that, and the listings credit him alone | | Translations | Spanish *Dominio* (Ático de los Libros, 2020), among others | | Structure | Preface; Part I *Antiquity* (chapters 1–7); Part II *Christendom* (8–14); Part III *Modernitas* (15–21); Acknowledgements; Notes (p. 545); Bibliography (p. 575); Index | | Cover | [Open Library cover](https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/id/9094964-L.jpg) | **Where it came up.** - Video: Nils Glenn, ["Our Understanding of Jesus Just Changed"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3WGPomiOJs). At [29:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3WGPomiOJs&t=1757s), right after Nietzsche's "slave revolt", Glenn cites *Dominion* (title and year shown on screen). He says the West's common sense, that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering, that every life has equal value and that victims deserve sympathy, came from worshipping a man who died a slave's death: "That's how completely the slaves' religion won." He calls Holland "not a Christian" (see the fact-check). - Requested by Video Summaries on 2026-11-07. - Vault note: [[Video Summaries/Nils Glenn/Our Understanding of Jesus Just Changed]]. ## 2. Book resources **Reference and catalog pages.** - Publishers: [Basic Books (Hachette)](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tom-holland/dominion/9780465093526/); Little, Brown UK (the [author's site](https://www.tom-holland.org) links its editions). - Open Library: work [OL20428369W](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20428369W); US edition [OL27914069M](https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27914069M). - Google Books: [search](https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/?q=isbn:9780465093502) (the ISBN search page). - WorldCat: [OCLC 1085635440](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1085635440). - Wikipedia: [Dominion (Holland book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book)). **Free (legal).** - **No legal free full text.** In copyright (2019); Project Gutenberg not applicable. Sites offering free PDFs are pirated, and I did not use or link them. - **Internet Archive lending / Open Library borrow: not available.** The scan [dominionhowchris0000holl](https://archive.org/details/dominionhowchris0000holl) is for print-disabled readers only. - **Free companion material:** Holland's chapter-by-chapter preview thread ([Thread Reader](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1164072513544101890.html)), and the Holland–Grayling debate (below). - **Libby/OverDrive: yes, ebook and audiobook.** Basic Books ebook [OverDrive 4560023](https://www.overdrive.com/media/4560023/dominion); Hachette Audio audiobook [4715619](https://www.overdrive.com/media/4715619/dominion) and the 2025 edition [12023678](https://lapl.overdrive.com/media/12023678); Little, Brown UK audiobook [12656564](https://www.overdrive.com/media/12656564/dominion). - **Hoopla:** not found; [search Hoopla](https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=dominion%20tom%20holland). **Paid.** - **Amazon print: yes.** US hardback [0465093507](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465093507); US paperback [1541675592](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1541675592); UK hardback [1408706954](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1408706954). - **Kindle: yes**, [B07NCY9RG9](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NCY9RG9) (US). - **Audible: yes**, [B0FG3FL38W](https://www.audible.com/pd/Dominion-Audiobook/B0FG3FL38W) (US, 2025); UK edition [B0FC33ZLDH](https://www.audible.com/pd/Dominion-Audiobook/B0FC33ZLDH) (Hachette Audio UK; this listing also names Nassim Nicholas Taleb as an author, which looks like a catalog error). ## 3. Author biography Thomas Holland was born on 5 January 1968 and grew up in Broad Chalke, near Salisbury in Wiltshire. He is the elder brother of the Second World War historian James Holland. He was educated at Canford School and Queens' College, Cambridge, where he took a double first in English, then started and abandoned a doctorate on Byron at Oxford. He began as a writer of Gothic vampire novels (*The Vampyre*, 1995, and successors). Reading Peter Green's *From Alexander to Actium* turned him to history, though he has no formal qualification in classics or history. His histories are *Rubicon* (2003, Hessell-Tiltman Prize), *Persian Fire* (2005, Runciman Award), *Millennium* (2008), *In the Shadow of the Sword* (2012; its Channel 4 companion film *Islam: The Untold Story* drew more than 1,200 complaints and death threats), *Dynasty* (2015), *Athelstan* (2016), *Dominion* (2019) and *Pax* (2023). He has also translated Herodotus (2013) and Suetonius (2025). Since 2020 he has co-hosted *The Rest Is History* with Dominic Sandbrook, which won the British Academy's President's Medal in 2023. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2016), sits on the British Library board, is a British Museum trustee, and in 2026 became Durham Cathedral's first honorary "Bede Librarian". On faith: he was raised Anglican by a devout mother (his father is an atheist) and drifted away. His 2016 *New Statesman* essay "Why I was wrong about Christianity" anticipated *Dominion*. By 2025 he said he regularly attends traditional worship at an old Anglican church in London, but still "lack[s] belief in the supernatural", which he called an "ache". Reviewers of his earlier books often praised the narrative and questioned the argument. Chris Wickham, Diarmaid MacCulloch and John Gillingham all queried *Millennium*'s thesis, and Glen Bowersock called *In the Shadow of the Sword* "irresponsible and unreliable". The same pattern recurs with *Dominion*. Sources: [Wikipedia, Tom Holland (author)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holland_(author)) and the sources it cites (Who's Who; Guardian interview 2015; New Humanist 2013; Palatinate 2025); [Audible author bio](https://www.audible.com/author/Tom-Holland/B000APEALK); [tom-holland.org](https://www.tom-holland.org). ## 4. Author interviews and talks - **The Big Conversation (Unbelievable?), "Did Christianity give us our human values?"**, Tom Holland vs A. C. Grayling, 6 Dec 2019: [episode page](https://www.thebigconversation.show/videos/season-2/episode-5-did-christianity-give-us-our-human-values/); [YouTube 7eSyz3BaVK8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eSyz3BaVK8). Holland explains how writing about Caesar and Leonidas made them feel "so alien" that he doubted classical roots for his own values. Grayling argues for Greek and Enlightenment roots instead. This is the best single source for the argument and the main objection to it. - **Holland's Twitter thread previewing every chapter** (August 2019): [Thread Reader](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1164072513544101890.html). Explains the 3 × 7 × 3 structure, Christian numerology he chose on purpose, and the opening scene of each chapter. - **"Why I was wrong about Christianity"**, *New Statesman*, 14 Sept 2016: the essay that prefigured the book (cited and quoted in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holland_(author)#Christianity); I did not open the original). - **Church Times interview with Andrew Brown**, 26 Sept 2019 ("isn't a history of Christianity" but of what was revolutionary about it); **France24**, 25 Nov 2019; **University of Reading, "The Making of Dominion"**, 23 Feb 2021; **History for Atheists interview with Tim O'Neill**, 16 Mar 2021. All are cited in [Wikipedia's Dominion article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book)#References); I did not open them. - **Public conversation with Nick Cave** (2025, "In Search of Wild Gods"), where he said he attends church, and the **Palatinate interview** (17 Nov 2025) on belief as an "ache". Both cited by Wikipedia. ## 5. Summary ### Thesis Crucifixion was, to the Romans, the most degrading of deaths, reserved for slaves. That people came to worship a crucified provincial as God was, Holland argues, the most radical inversion of values in history. Over 2,000 years the Christian story taught the West that the weak, the poor and the victim have a claim on the strong. It did this so thoroughly that the inheritance became invisible, even to those who rejected the faith. Modern secular ideals (human rights, equality, liberalism, feminism, revolution, science, even secularism and "wokeness") grew from a "Christian seedbed". Nietzsche, de Sade and the Nazis saw this most clearly, because they hated it. Holland insists the book is history, not apologetics: it asks not whether Christianity is true or good, but how far it has shaped the standards by which we judge. ### Outline Chapter titles and page numbers are from the US hardback contents. The opening scenes are given as Holland himself previewed them. **Preface** (p. 1). Holland's own change of mind about the ancient world's values (described in the Grayling debate; the preface's exact content is unconfirmed). **Part I: Antiquity** 1. **Athens. 479 BC: The Hellespont** (p. 21). The Athenians capture Artaÿctes, the Persian governor, crucify him and stone his son before his eyes (Herodotus). This sets the baseline: power and cruelty as the ancient norm. 2. **Jerusalem. 63 BC: Jerusalem** (p. 47). Pompey captures the Temple and enters the Holy of Holies. The chapter covers the Jewish inheritance; PW notes Moses' "legislation directly authored by a god". 3. **Mission. AD 19: Galatia** (p. 80). The Galatians proclaim the *euangelion*, the "good news", of a man who ascended to heaven to reign as a god: Caesar Augustus. Paul's rival gospel follows (theme per the reviews; unconfirmed in detail). 4. **Belief. AD 177: Lyon** (p. 107). Irenaeus leaves for Rome as the Christians of the Rhône valley wait to die in the theatre of Lyon. LJ: "the struggle to define Christian doctrine". 5. **Charity. AD 362: Pessinus** (p. 137). The emperor Julian visits Cybele's shrine and is appalled. His attempt to match Christian charity shows how far Christian care for the poor had already reshaped expectations. 6. **Heaven. 492: Mount Gargano** (p. 159). A bull is miraculously saved from a poisoned arrow and the archangel Michael appears: "I am the guardian of this place." 7. **Exodus. 632: Carthage** (p. 179). An imperial letter orders the forced baptism of all the Jews in Africa. Islam's rise is the backdrop (unconfirmed). **Part II: Christendom** 8. **Conversion. 754: Frisia** (p. 201). Pirates kill the 80-year-old missionary Boniface, who forbids his retinue to fight. A book in his hands is hacked through twice. 9. **Revolution. 1076: Cambrai** (p. 222). A mob burns Ramihrd as a heretic, and the bishop finds the pope admires the victim. This is Gregory VII's reform: the "papal revolution" separating church from secular power, the seed of the religious/secular division. 10. **Persecution. 1229: Marburg** (p. 247). The widowed princess Elizabeth of Thuringia toils in a hospital under her harsh "Master of Spiritual Discipline", Conrad of Marburg, later an inquisitor. 11. **Flesh. 1300: Milan** (p. 271). Inquisitors dig up Guglielma, revered by a secret order as the Holy Spirit incarnate, whose coming would bring female popes and cardinals. 12. **Apocalypse. 1420: Tabor** (p. 292). Hussites from every class build what Holland calls "history's first town founded on communist principles". 13. **Reformation. 1520: Wittenberg** (p. 314). Luther burns the papal bull. 14. **Cosmos. 1620: Leiden** (p. 338). Leiden celebrates its deliverance from Spain while English Puritans prepare to leave. The theme of cosmos and science is unconfirmed in detail. **Part III: Modernitas** 15. **Spirit. 1649: St George's Hill** (p. 363). Gerrard Winstanley's Diggers claim the earth as "a common Treasury for all". 16. **Enlightenment. 1762: Toulouse** (p. 387). A scream from Jean Calas's shop begins the Calas affair, Voltaire's cause célèbre. The thesis here is that the Enlightenment's tolerance and rights rest on Christian premises. 17. **Religion. 1825: Baroda** (p. 413). A British surgeon watches a young widow burn on the banks of the Vishwamitri. The theme, per a third-party summary, is how Europeans invented "religion" (and "Hinduism") as a category. 18. **Science. 1876: The Judith River** (p. 435). Edward Drinker Cope dreams of the dinosaurs he excavates in the Montana badlands. The themes are Darwin and science's Christian assumptions; PW notes Darwin, Marx and de Sade among this part's figures. 19. **Shadow. 1916: The Somme** (p. 459). Otto Dix in a machine-gun post: "Humanity changes in demonic fashion." The chapter leads to Nietzsche's heirs and Hitler (PW: "Hitler rises to power"). 20. **Love. 1967: Abbey Road** (p. 488). The Beatles' *Our World* broadcast of "All You Need Is Love", a prescription "with which neither Aquinas, nor Augustine, nor Saint Paul" would disagree. LJ: the Christian origins of the 1960s love and peace movement. 21. **Woke. 2015: Rostock** (p. 515). Angela Merkel, on live television, faces a Palestinian girl facing deportation who begins to cry. The chapter covers the refugee crisis, #MeToo and "woke" morality as Christian inheritances. Back matter: Acknowledgements (p. 543), Notes (p. 545), Bibliography (p. 575), Index (p. 593). The book is dedicated to Holland's godmother, Deborah Gillingham, and, he says, "ends with her as well". ### Key ideas - **The crucified God as revolution.** A slave's death made divine turned ancient values (strength, glory, honour) upside down. - **Invisible inheritance.** Christian assumptions are so pervasive that the West mistakes them for universal human values. - **Secularism as a Christian product.** The religion/secular division itself comes from Christendom, notably the Gregorian reform. - **Critics as witnesses.** Those most hostile (Julian, Nietzsche, de Sade, the Nazis) saw most clearly what Christianity had changed. - **Good and ill.** Holland includes persecution, inquisition and antisemitism, but reads reform movements as Christianity judging itself by its own standards. - **Method.** Vivid episodes and characters, not a continuous narrative or a theology; 3 parts × 7 chapters × 3 sections. ## 6. Fact-check | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | Artaÿctes was crucified and his son stoned before his eyes (479 BC) | **Supported** | Herodotus, *Histories* 9.120 ([Perseus](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+9.120)); Holland translated Herodotus | | Romans saw crucifixion as the worst death, a punishment for slaves | **Supported** | Cicero, *Against Verres* 2.5.165–70; Martin Hengel, *Crucifixion* (1977). The source video cites Cicero too | | Western morality, human rights and secularism derive from Christianity | **Disputed** (the book's central, contested thesis) | For: John Gray (*New Statesman*), Eagleton in part (*Guardian*); compare Larry Siedentop, *Inventing the Individual* (2014). Against or qualified: Grayling (Big Conversation 2019); Sumption (*Spectator*: the Western mind is "too large a concept for any one thing to have 'made' it"); DeGroot (*Sunday Times*: "too ethnocentric"); Moyn (*FT*: "explains everything and nothing"); *Economist* ("correlation is not causation"). All via [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book)#Reception) | | Science is "deeply rooted in a Christian seedbed" | **Disputed** | Sumption: hard to accept Christianity contributed to empirical enquiry's rejection of revealed authority. The Christian-origins-of-science thesis is debated among historians of science | | Everything "Nice" in modern values is Christian; the nasty parts were deviations | **Disputed** (reviewer's critique) | Thonemann (*WSJ*, 1 Nov 2019): runs "dangerously close to apologetic" | | Later "Modernitas" chapters are weaker than the ancient ones | **Supported** (reviewer consensus) | Orr (*The Critic*), Evans (*Church Times*), Moyn (*FT*), per Wikipedia | | Julian tried to rival Christian charity (362) | **Supported** | Julian, *Letter 22* to Arsacius; the source video also cites it | | Order to baptise all Africa's Jews, Carthage 632 | **Supported** | *Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati* describes Heraclius's forced baptism at Carthage in 632 | | Boniface martyred in Frisia, 754 | **Supported** (date sometimes given as 755) | Willibald's *Vita Bonifatii*; the hacked "Ragyndrudis Codex" at Fulda is traditionally linked to the story | | Ramihrd burned at Cambrai, with Gregory VII condemning the killers | **Supported** | Gregory VII, *Register* 4.20 (1077) | | Tabor was "history's first town founded on communist principles" | **Disputed** (overstated) | Holland's own phrase (thread). Earlier communities of shared property (Essenes, monastic houses) make "first" arguable | | A British surgeon (Richard Hartley Kennedy) watched a sati at Baroda, Nov 1825 | **Unverified** | The name comes only from a third-party summary (Bookey); Holland's thread gives no name. Primary source not found | | Merkel and the crying Palestinian girl, Rostock 2015 | **Supported** | Widely reported in July 2015 (Reem Sahwil, *Gut leben in Deutschland* forum); the date and place match | | "All You Need Is Love" was the Beatles' largest-ever audience | **Supported** | *Our World* global satellite broadcast, 25 June 1967 | | The source video's "Holland is not a Christian" | **Partly supported** | He says he lacks belief in the supernatural but regularly attends Anglican worship (2025; Wikipedia) | | The source video's account of the book's thesis | **Supported** as a summary | Matches the publisher description and Holland's own framing in the Grayling debate | *Note: the primary-source references in this table (Herodotus 9.120, Cicero, Julian's letter, the* Doctrina Jacobi*, Willibald, Gregory VII's* Register*) are standard scholarly citations given from general knowledge. Only the Perseus Herodotus link was supplied, and none was opened this run, so treat their exact numbering as unverified.* ## 7. Citations and references **Notable sources the book draws on** (from Holland's thread and the reviews; the bibliography itself not seen): - Herodotus, *Histories* (Holland's own translation, Penguin 2013); public-domain translations on [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=herodotus). - Paul's letters (Galatians: "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female", quoted in the reviews). - Julian, *Letters*; Irenaeus; the *Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyon* (in Eusebius, *Ecclesiastical History* 5.1). - Luther; Winstanley; Voltaire, *Treatise on Toleration* (Calas); Darwin; Nietzsche, *The Antichrist* and *Beyond Good and Evil* ([Gutenberg search](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=nietzsche)). - Secondary comparisons: Larry Siedentop, *Inventing the Individual* (2014). A. C. Grayling's counter-case is set out in the 2019 debate. **Reviews**, all as cited in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book)): Terry Eagleton, *Guardian*, 21 Nov 2019; John Gray, *New Statesman*, 18 Sept 2019; *The Economist*, 29 Aug 2019; Samuel Moyn, *Financial Times*, 13 Sept 2019; Peter Thonemann, *Wall Street Journal*, 1 Nov 2019; Jonathan Sumption, *Spectator*, 31 Aug 2019; Gerard DeGroot, *Sunday Times*, 23 Aug 2019; James Orr, *The Critic*, Dec 2019; G. R. Evans, *Church Times*, 13 Sept 2019; Ed Simon, *LA Review of Books*, 13 July 2020; Kirkus, 2019. *Publishers Weekly* and *Library Journal* (Augustine J. Curley) were read via Syndetics. **Links used in this note** - https://secure.syndetics.com/index.aspx?isbn=0465093507/toc.html&client=sfpl (also summary.html, pwreview.html, ljreview.html) - https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1164072513544101890.html - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Holland_(author) - https://openlibrary.org/works/OL20428369W ; https://openlibrary.org/books/OL27914069M ; https://archive.org/details/dominionhowchris0000holl - https://www.betterworldbooks.com/product/detail/dominion-how-the-christian-revolution-remade-the-world-9781541675599 - https://www.thebigconversation.show/videos/season-2/episode-5-did-christianity-give-us-our-human-values/ ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eSyz3BaVK8 - https://www.audible.com/pd/Dominion-Audiobook/B0FG3FL38W ; https://www.audible.com/pd/Dominion-Audiobook/B0FC33ZLDH ; https://www.audible.com/author/Tom-Holland/B000APEALK - https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/dominion/id1482138083 - https://www.overdrive.com/media/4560023/dominion ; https://www.overdrive.com/media/4715619/dominion ; https://www.overdrive.com/media/12656564/dominion ; https://lapl.overdrive.com/media/12023678 - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NCY9RG9 ; https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465093507 - https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tom-holland/dominion/9780465093526/ - https://search.worldcat.org/title/1085635440 - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+9.120 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3WGPomiOJs