The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western SuccessMany books have been written about the success of the West, analyzing why Europe was able to pull ahead of the rest of the world by the end of the Middle Ages. The most common explanations cite the West’s superior geography, commerce, and technology. Completely overlooked is the fact that faith in reason, rooted in Christianity’s commitment to rational theology, made all these developments possible. Simply put, the conventional wisdom that Western success depended upon overcoming religious barriers to progress is utter nonsense.In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark’s view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and nonsecular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason: While the world’s other great belief systems emphasized mystery, obedience, or introspection, Christianity alone embraced logic and reason as the path toward enlightenment, freedom, and progress. That is what made all the difference.In explaining the West’s dominance, Stark convincingly debunks long-accepted “truths.” For instance, by contending that capitalism thrived centuries before there was a Protestant work ethic–or even Protestants–he counters the notion that the Protestant work ethic was responsible for kicking capitalism into overdrive. In the fifth century, Stark notes, Saint Augustine celebrated theological and material progress and the institution of “exuberant invention.” By contrast, long before Augustine, Aristotle had condemned commercial trade as “inconsistent with human virtue”–which helps further underscore that Augustine’s times were not the Dark Ages but the incubator for the West’s future glories. This is a sweeping, multifaceted survey that takes readers from the Old World to the New, from the past to the present, overturning along the way not only centuries of prejudiced scholarship but the antireligious bias of our own time. The Victory of Reason proves that what we most admire about our world–scientific progress, democratic rule, free commerce–is largely due to Christianity, through which we are all inheritors of this grand tradition. |
Contents
3 | |
Medieval Progress Technical Cultural and Religious | 33 |
Tyranny and the Rebirth of Freedom | 69 |
Perfecting Italian Capitalism | 103 |
Capitalism Moves North | 129 |
Catholic Anticapitalism Spanish | 161 |
Feudalism and Capitalism in the New World | 195 |
Globalization and Modernity | 233 |
Notes | 239 |
Bibliography | 253 |
Index | 271 |
Other editions - View all
The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and ... Rodney Stark Limited preview - 2006 |
The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and ... Rodney Stark No preview available - 2005 |
The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and ... Rodney Stark No preview available - 2006 |
Common terms and phrases
achieved American Antwerp Aquinas Armada Augustine became began bishops Bruges Cambridge capitalist Catholic China Christian church cities clergy cloth colonies command economies commercial culture Dark Ages despots developed doctrines Dutch early economic empire England English woolen estates European export fact faith firms Flanders fleeces Florence France freedom French Genoa Ghent Gimpel Greek guilds historians Holy Roman Emperor human Humiliati Ibid important imposed innovation invented Islam Italian banks Italian city-states Italy king labor large numbers Latin America major manufacturing Medici Bank merchants Milan modern monastic Muslim nations Netherlands North northern percent podestà political pope productive profits progress Protestant ethic Protestantism rapidly reason religion religious Revolution Riccardi rise of capitalism Roman Rome rule ships slavery slaves soon Spain Spanish Spanish empire Spanish Netherlands substantial sustained taxes theologians theology thirteenth century tion trade University Press Venetian Venice wealth Western wool woolen industry workers