Book Review: Caesar and Christ by Will Durant

Caesar and Christ by Will Durant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A little village on an inconsequential river eventually expands to command the entire Mediterranean basin and Western Europe creating an economical and cultural exchange while their homeland disintegrated allowing their conquests to eventually rule over them in politics, culture, and religion. Caesar and Christ is the third volume of Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization series focusing on the rise of the Roman Empire and it’s conquest from within by Christianity.

As with the previous two volumes, Durant began the book with a prologue of sorts this time focusing on the Etruscans and other early Italians that would be subsumed by Rome. Covering roughly a millennium of time from the reputed founding of the city in 753 B.C. to the reign of Constantine, Durant covered all aspects of the development of Roman society from government to architecture to religion and philosophy to military conquest to societal and economical interplay. Once on the verge of the Christian era, Durant begins alluding to the conditions in Roman society and religion that would allow Christianity to grow before focusing on the development of Christianity from Jesus’ ministry to Constantine’s conversion. Though comprehensive in his material Durant’s phrasing was problematic due to his use of the ”Roman race” throughout the book, given the original publishing date was in 1944 this suggestion very outdated thinking about the development of human societies. Another important analysis from Durant’s description of the spread of Christianity was the Church’s absorption of practices from other religions that would come to the fore 1200 years later.

Caesar and Christ details the most impactful political and religious institutions that still resonate today in the West.

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