Post: #1

After years of soaking up post 9/11 GI bill money, I have come to a point where I have to write a thesis. I have been looking into the Christianization of Europe as a possible topic. I would like to deal mainly with north europe around the time of the saxon wars, ie charlemagne and widukind. Does anyone have any book recommendations, preferable ones not well distributed, and is there any subject matter experts lurking here?

thank you

Post: #2

Within what subject?

Rodney Stark wrote a very interesting if somewhat criticized book called "The Rise of Christianity" that offers a theory of why and how Christianity conquered Rome. It's very interesting. He uses rational choice theory to explain his idea (i.e. the idea that humans maximize their utility functions under a given set of constraints and assumptions). I am personally a big fan of this approach, because even irrational behavior can be explained in rational terms. That's what the manosphere is all about, and why Heartiste is by a mile and a long shot the best blog. He does a terrific job of synthesizing science.

A slightly less scholarly and more polemical book that I also really enjoyed was "Victory of Reason".

Post: #3

"A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years" by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Post: #4

i bought both books, il let you know how i feel about them.

Post: #5

For that part there are a bunch of good books in the local languages, German, Czech, probably Polish...etc.

An interesting subject you can also look into is the island of Rujana (Rugen in German). This used to be one of the holiest places for the pagan Slavic tribes of Pomerania. The Christianization of that area was followed by a gradual Germanization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%BCgen

I have read a lot about the subject, so we can discuss some topics here on the thread if you want.

Post: #6

There's a free book called The History of England by David Hume. It's brilliant as it uses sources from those times and has a huge section on Anglo Saxon England