My 3 star review of The Age of Faith (The Story of Civilization, #4), by Will Durant:-
Spoiler:
I began reading this book in January the 10th 0f 2021 and finished reading it on the 13th of April of the same year. This means that I blitzed my way through this book. For you see, this book was enormous, both in its physicality and its scope.
There is only one book above 1000 pages of my knowledge that has FUN stamped all over it in each page, and that book, is not LoTR. LoTR doesn't count because it is not a genuinely single work.
Back to The Age of Faith. The words in it are meant to be absorbed over a longer time than it took me. I hurried my way through it, but if it worked for The Way of Kings, it ought to be good enough for any chunky book. By the way The Way of Kings is that book that is perfect in each of its page. Until a reread dethrones it that is. Been having awful rereads recently.
I was most interested in England, France, Ireland, Italy and the Middle East mainly. I kind of got my answer to the age old question as to why the Italians are so refined in their culture but also are so Mesozoic in some of their ways. By the way, I've followed a few recipes from top chefs based in Italy and I came away with the feeling that I was being punked. Italian cooking is marginally inferior to English cooking. Just my opinion.
What I take from the Age of Faith is that history is different from popular culture. I was always bummed by the adage of calling our worldview theory... postmodernism. In fact we're proud of this word. This book made me realise how myopic so many current theologians, tech gurus, sociologists, historians and journalists are. News Flash people! we are never going to be postmodernists. That will happen when and only when people are enlightened enough when they expect a G7 summit gathering dress up their leaders in what I wear around the house. Boxer shorts and wife beater.