Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom

Cambridge Studies in Economics, Choice, and Society

by Noel D. Johnson, Mark Koyama

Religious freedom has become an emblematic value in the West. Embedded in constitutions and championed by politicians and thinkers across the political spectrum, it is to many an absolute value, something beyond question. Yet how it emerged, and why, remains widely misunderstood. Tracing the history of religious persecution from the Fall of Rome to the present-day, Noel D. Johnson and Mark Koyama provide a novel explanation of the birth of religious liberty. This book treats the subject in an integrative way by combining economic reasoning with historical evidence from medieval and early modern Europe. The authors elucidate the economic and political incentives that shaped the actions of political leaders during periods of state building and economic growth.

Genres: History, Religion, Economics, Politics, Nonfiction

368 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 14, 2019

Reviews

[Sahand Mozaffari · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has some nice ideas and plausible theories, but the arguments for them fall just short of satisfying. If you don't mind the Euro-centrism, it makes some good points.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

In jeder Hinsicht großartige Erklärung der Entwicklung religiöser Toleranz, leider verirren sich die Autoren auf manchen der übermäßig vielen Nebenschauplätze

[Logan Streondj · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good in depth analysis of religious persecution in Western Europe it's causes and eventual solutions, from the lens of socio economic factors such as climate and food shortages.
Apparently cold spells create food stress which increases religious persecution.
However the witch hunts were mostly due to kangaroo courts and people feeling guilty about some woman being nice to them, so instead of repaying in kind they had them burned at the stake.
It's the age old testament practice of covering up lesser crimes by blood sacrificing the innocent.

I only give this four stars as it completely ignores the religious factor in abrahamic faiths that cause religious persecution except in one or two sentences where in says that in Rome there was peace amongst all faiths until Judaism and Christianity came along which considered all other faiths as genocide worthy.

Also the book tried to claim religious suppression was not exclusive to the west because political descent was quashed in China and Japan had an anti foreign influence policy for centuries.

While ignoring places which had little or no religious conflict such as India. Anyways maybe I'll read up on India in case i have any preconceptions to clear up.

This book is worth archiving to help explain the religious persecution in Western Europe and the role of Jews as the King's personal usurer's for much of Western Europe's history.