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Description of  Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years

Writing a connected narrative covering 2,000 years is a daunting task, and the success of its outcome is better measured by accessibility than completeness. Edwards necessarily paints with broad strokes, but the resulting picture will provoke many to ask more specific questions and seek out more particular histories. Edwards is most helpful in describing Christianity's transformation from sect to state religion during the first three centuries of its existence and in characterizing the divergent strands represented by Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Edwards intertwines Christianity's transformation and the emergence of European identity, and he suggests important connections between various Christianities and cultures in the histories of Protestantism, "American" Christianity, and "African" Christianity. His discussion of Christianity in the postmodern age is abbreviated yet provokes further reflection on relationships between Christianity and its many locations. The variousness Edwards discloses calls the whole idea of a single-narrative history into question, of course, but that may be another indication of success, particularly if questioning readers proceed to the mass of suggested further reading.