Suzannah Rowntree > Recent Status Updates

While this book is not as historically in depth as I'd hoped (especially compared to the podcast) it's worth the price of admission just for the utterly bonkers "Historical Love Island" episode which pairs up Empress Theodora of Byzantium with Stanley Baldwin, crossword-loving WWI Prime Minister

"The Ancient Greeks thought the Persians hilariously effeminate because they refused to wear skirts"

"The best pigeons have a range of over 600 miles, which is twice as far as most Teslas (and twenty-five times further than Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship rocket)"

oh this is NOT a book for the gym. no way I can do deadlifts under these conditions

"For Christians, a good way to understand toxic masculinity is, simply, the distinct way that sin has broken and fractured the expression of male embodiment."

Never before heard an analysis of 9/11 from an intelligence perspective before. Andrew is pretty scathing of US interdepartmental rivalry and hubris here.

On the global Catholic missions of the 16th & 17th centuries: "The perpetual trouble in all these mission-fields was the European reluctance to accept on equal terms the peoples whom they encountered... It was not surprising that when a Church infrastructure which remained European fell into decay in any area of the world, the Church as a whole soon began to fade away."

Every time I read about the Germans shipping Lenin to Russia and funding the extreme Bolsheviks during WWI I'm freshly horrified but after reading Figes' A PEOPLE'S TRAGEDY a couple of years back on the actual effects of the Russian Revolution...it's about ten times worse

"In fact England judicially murdered more Roman Catholics than any other country in Europe, which puts English pride in national tolerance in an interesting perspective" history is always more chequered than propaganda will admit

And now it turns out that one of the reasons the Scottish Reformation was so successful was that it was ALSO fairly laissez-faire, and tolerant of Catholic dissent, and (like the successful Polish counter Reformation) did the majority of its work via teaching & persuasion rather than force.

On the political forces that shaped the Dutch Republic: "The result was Europe's first established Church where in normal times it was possible to opt in or opt out without and great penalty." my reading in the past 2 years has impressed upon me just how incredibly new in world history it is for the state not to try to force you to practice a specific religion.

Ah yes, and here we are at the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna, the only event in European history of which every description resembles bad erotica for monarchists

Ok this sub section on "Tridentine Success" is a SUPER helpful précis of how the post/counter-Reformation Roman Church differed from the medieval Church. I did not know that it was at this time that the rosary became popular! And the fact that here the church took on the charitable/social welfare role of the professional medieval guilds was fascinating.

The pages on the impact of the Psalms, previously relegated to monastic practise - as heart cries, rallying cries, and the consummate expression of Reformed Protestantism in France - went through me like a knife.

ok but I just feel that more people should know about Charles II sending hit squads around Europe to hunt down everyone who came within sniffing distance of his rotten father's death warrant

The stuff on Elizabeth I is fascinating. MacCulloch says that although many have depicted her as "coolly secular" compared to Mary I, this famously cautious woman acted surprisingly boldly when setting up a Protestant regime at her accession. Her 39 Articles, too, he argues were intended less to conciliate Catholics than Lutherans. He sees her as a committed and convicted Protestant.

Fascinated by how Andrew compares Spanish Inquisition tactics with those employed by the USSR to ensure ideological purity. But the kicker is the fact that the Spanish Inquisition invented waterboarding and the US adopted it while repressing the Philippines.

sitting with my head in my hands, processing the fact that the big thing the Christianisation of the Roman Empire contributed to the history of intelligence is that the emperors made divination illegal so that instead, FINALLY, of running to seers every time they needed military guidance, people had to start using the brains God gave them

ok but I'm LIVING for the scathing commentary on the state of classical Greek intelligence as compared to that of the ancient Hebrews. "the Greek gods, unlike the Hebrew God, did not value intelligence at all." The Greeks used diviners instead, with predictable results...

Wild to me how strong and widespread the Reformation was in places like Poland and Hungary! The way protestants there were able to benefit from laws designed to allow Latin Catholics and Eastern Orthodox to peacefully coexist!

this absolutely bonkers book, narrated with brilliant sensory detail, is certainly not assuaging my desire to read a JADE CITY-esque urban fantasy inspired by Putinist Russia

The 1550 papal conclave in which Reginald Pole came within a SINGLE vote of being elected pope would have made a better setting for a thriller than the fictional one in CONCLAVE (2024)

Fascinated to learn that there was a strong movement in Italy, the Spirituali, who embraced justification by faith while wishing to retain a Roman perspective on confession and the Eucharist, and attempted a reconciliation with the Reformers. After this failed, in the early 1540s many of them, despite wishing to be loyal to Rome, were forced to flee Italy for Protestant strongholds in Geneva and Strasbourg.

asjkfagh how come no one ever told me HOW GOOD this was??????? the Victorian setting is SO WELL DONE and I would DIE for Jessamine, a fully unhinged disaster girl who, having been born into the ultracool secret demon-hunting nephilim heritage, would do literally anything to get out and have a nice normal middle-class angel-in-the-house Victorian domestic life

The English Reformation is so wild to me. Incredibly cynical. More about politics than religion. It chewed up and spat out one of its most important early figures, Anne Boleyn. An attempt to establish bad old Byzantine style ceasaropapism. Just a clown car of bad faith actors. No idea how there wasn't a giant pro-Catholic backlash (tho one might argue that the Civil War was a pro-democracy backlash)

Katharina Schutz Zell you ungovernable legend I'm going to need you to meet my good friend Eve (were)-Baehr immediately

ok I knew Kyrylo Budanov, the competent chief of military intelligence, was some kind of internet meme deity but. besties I have to admit. deciding on a whim that you're going to tag along with the most elite special forces brigade in the Ukrainian army to help storm and liberate a small village while the Russians are literally lobbing cruise missiles at your office is officially the most legendary thing I've heard

not to be completely unbearable, but this book is reminding me how correct I was, all the times I've said something about the war in Ukraine and SOME BLOKE has well-actually'd me

MacCulloch argues that the Reformed synodical model of church leadership was a greater influence on modern parliamentarianism than the medieval English parliament, which was far less democratic. Also really enjoyed the discussions of covenant theology and symbolic memorialism vs symbolic instrumentalism. My experience is that many Reformed laypeople adhere to the former, Zwingli's view rather than Calvin's.

oh this is fantastic - well written and informed.

SO the reason the West thought Ukraine was dead meat was that General Zaluzhny had all these plans for defending the country but didn't want to tell anyone anything, including the political leadership of his own country, in case the Russians got a hold of it.

"we didn't want to lose the element of surprise" said Zaluzhny

I'm sorry but what an absolute legend

a) wait this is Woody Allen and Mia Farrow's son?!?
b) he writes a good book but this is the worst attempt at an Australian accent I have EVER heard, and I sat through all of the Netflix Carmen Sandiego animated series.