New Book Review Blog - Armarium Magnum

[James Hannam]

Hi Tim,

Good review and much enjoyed.

I think that Charles Freeman writes from the perspective of a humanist in the old fashioned sense of someone who loves the classical world. In some ways, I'm similar and if I could live my life again, I'd want to be a classicist. This means that Charles has trouble, I think, seeing what was wrong with the ancient world and resents it's passing. And although Christianity did not cause the end of the classical world, he does not see it as part of the same tradition. Rather it is an alien imposter.

I suppose I'm just engaging in amateur psychology, but I'm just trying to say that I can see where he is coming from. That does not alter his difficiencies as a historian which you have ruthlessly laid bare.

Best wishes

James

[Al Moritz]

Tim,

Upon reading your review, I was impressed by your love for objectivity. Well done.

Al

[turoldus]

"Despite what Freeman would like to pretend or have his readers believe, the intolerance of the post-Constantinian emperors of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries had deep Roman and Classical roots. The Romans were tolerant enough of various cults, but only so long as they met certain criteria. Obviously the worship of their version of the Olympian gods was fine and this cult formed the centre of their regime for centuries. And the gods of their conquered peoples were also acceptable so long as they conformed more or less to the Roman model of religion. So the worship of the Celtic god Grannos or Grannus as an equivalent of Apollo was acceptable and tolerated, but the Celtic practice of human sacrifice was not. This means toga-wearing priests of Grannos continued to present offerings to their god at Aquae Granni (now Aachen) in the wake of the Roman conquest of Gaul, but the British druids experienced something very different to Freeman's idealised Roman "tolerance" when Suetonius Paulinus and his troops descended on their cult centre on the island of Anglesey and massacred them and their families."

I can hear Freeman and friends screaming: "Banning human sacrifice was not a matter of intolerance! It was about civilization! The Romans may have been somewhat harsh in dealing with the matter, but they were on the right track, unlike those irrational book-burning Christians!"

[timoneill]

Jun 29, 2009 10:56:01 GMT turoldus said:

I can hear Freeman and friends screaming: "Banning human sacrifice was not a matter of intolerance! It was about civilization! The Romans may have been somewhat harsh in dealing with the matter, but they were on the right track, unlike those irrational book-burning Christians!"

Though they would also turn a conveniently blind eye to the occasional Roman practice of human sacrifice, such as burying slaves alive to placate the gods in times of impending disaster or conveniently "discovering" an unchaste Vestal and burying her alive as a scapegoat for something going wrong. That, of course, is entirely different.

"Terrific race the Romans ... " Life of Brian

[humphreyclarke]

Charles Freeman replies:

armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/06/closing-of-western-mind-by-charles.html

From Charles Freeman

Dear Tim, I have been put onto your review through the grapevine. I won’t reply to it first because Closing came out in 2002, and was written in the two years before that so it is based on material mostly ten or more years old. I have written four more books since then. Secondly much of my thinking now will be in my Yale book on early Christianity - to 600 - which comes out in September and you will be able to review that.

I have to say that despite extensive reading , I haven’t much changed my views. The archaeological evidence for Christian destruction is now building up ( See Sauer’s book on The Archaeology of Religous Hatred, Tempus Books, 2003. Sauer is professor of Classical Archaeology at Edinburgh.His evidence ties in well with the literary evidence e.g. Martin of Deacon’s Life of Porphyry, which details P (the Bishop of Gaza’s) destruction, with imperial approval, of the pagan temple in Gaza.) Fergus Millar, surely a top name, has much on Theodosius’ activities against pagans and heretics in his A Greek Roman Empire, Power and Belief under Theodosius II, 408-450, University of California, 2006. Some people make a lot of Edward Grant but it is Grant who quotes (in his Science and Religion 400 BC - AD 1550, Johns Hopkins, 2004, p.145 ) the view that ‘Bede’s ‘ establishment of the port” is the only original formulation of nature to be made in the west for some eight centuries’. My feeling is that since 2000, when I first started on this subject, the debate has come more my way than yours, but clearly debates will and should continue.

Small points in reply to comments.

1) I am the same Charles Freeman who wrote on modern history in the 1980s - unless there is another Charles Freeman I don’t know of .

2). You can download Richard Schlagel’s review of Closing in the Review of Metaphysics from Amazon. com. He is a Professor at George Washington University, who is well known as a historian of science and he has written extensively on this period.He liked it and it seems you must have missed it.

3) I don’t know of any savagely condemnatory reviews from professional academics- there was a negative one from Bowersock in the Los Angeles Times and James O’Donnell made a fool of himself by criticising the book on the title alone and then admitting that he had not read it! Perhaps my publisher did not pass them on! Any writer who does temper tantrums when he/she got a critical review would’t last long!We all get a range of fors and againsts and live with that as a fact of life (though in my own experience most books get hardly any reviews at all! -one of mine only had one review).

4) I was asked as their guest speaker at the Roundtable Conferences (a faculty grouping of scientists and theologians) at Harvard, MIT and Amherst last year. John Polkinghorne was their guest the year before. I haven’t experienced the academic disaproval you suggest. In fact, I have had more contacts with professional academics since Closing came out than I had before and people like Paul Cartledge,Professor of Greek History at Cambridge,openly endorse my work.

5) Yale approached me on the basis of Closing to write on early Christianity. My proposal had to be passed by their academic advisory board, then the text went through two academic readers, one of whom has gone public to endorse the book, and then have the final manuscript passed by the academic board before it could be published. I don’t know who is going to make any money - my advance for two years work was £17,500. I went through as tough a precedure ,and for even less money ,with Oxford University Press for my Egypt, Greece and Rome. Your commentator who mentioned the difficulty in getting published by academic presses is absolutely right.

I enjoy the rough and tumble of debate but must bring this one to a close especially as I am sure you will start it again when you have read the Yale book! Good reading , Charles Freeman.

My intial thoughts. The destruction of pagan temples, the defacing of statues and other evidence of intolerance is mentioned, but I fail to see how this supports the idea that this occasioned a decline in science and 'rational thinking', paticularly when intellectual culture continued in pretty much the same vein in Byzantium. It collapsed in the West with the fall of the Roman Empire. Freeman mentions this (and Bede's solitary contribution) but the reasons for this are not mentioned.

Richard Schlagel is a professor of Philosophy who does write on the history of science. Mind you, he does appear to be an A.C Grayling type character who launches forth out of his area of expertise to write grand narratives of the scientific method triumphing over religion. The only professional historian of science I could find who mentions 'Closing' (David Lindburg in the latest edition of 'The Beginnings of Western Science') does so in highly derogatory terms.

[James Hannam]

This is why I like Charles so much. He is always willing to answer his critics but does so politely and constructively.

On Schlagel, I found a review of his book The Vanquished Gods which make clear he has used Rodney Stark's work on the sociology of early Christianity. (http://atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/VanquishedGods_2.htm) This is funny because Stark is pro-Christian (and a sucker for punishment - his latest book is a defence of the Crusades).

Best wishes

James

[James Hannam]

Jul 2, 2009 13:23:30 GMT humphreyclarke said:

The destruction of pagan temples, the defacing of statues and other evidence of intolerance is mentioned, but I fail to see how this supports the idea that this occasioned a decline in science and 'rational thinking', paticularly when intellectual culture continued in pretty much the same vein in Byzantium.

I think what I mentioned above ties into this. For Charles, classical civilisation is self-evidently good and also a coherent whole. Christianity is an alien imposter. So any attack by Christianity on an aspect of classical culture (for example, paganism) is evidence of an attack of on all of it, including Greek philosophy.

Best wishes

James

[timoneill]

Jul 2, 2009 13:50:55 GMT James Hannam said:

This is why I like Charles so much. He is always willing to answer his critics but does so politely and constructively.

And inadequately. Still, I'm impressed at his restraint. I posted my article on June 28th and he took a whole four days to respond.

I will post a reply to his comments in the next day or so. In the meantime, does anyone know where I can find online copies of the glowing reviews he's so proudly mentions?

Edit: I tried downloading Richard Schlagel’s review from Amazon.com as he suggested, but apparently "geographical restrictions" won't let me. I assume this means it's only available to those in the US for copyright reasons.

[merkavah12]

Well, the hammer has dropped and dropped HARD. Ouch.

Remind me never to get on Tim's bad side.

The most interesting part? Freeman STILL refuses to confront the criticisms and says at one point:

"No one is asking you to change your mind(s), rather that you should not feel you have to be some gatekeeper of an absolute truth. I think you will have a lot more intellectual fun!"

So there you have it, compadres. Freeman freely admits that truth is not his concern.

[Al Moritz]

Jul 4, 2009 6:40:56 GMT merkavah12 said:

Well, the hammer has dropped and dropped HARD. Ouch.

You mean here:

armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/07/reply-from-charles-freeman-of-sorts.html

[merkavah12]

Ho ho! James, it looks like you have pissed someone off. A fellow by the name of "historyblogwatcher"


"To Anonymous re James Hannam: You can google ‘James Hannam’ to find out more about him. He’s a Brit who runs a conservative Christian blogsite..."

Huh. I would have never described you as "Conservative" but....

"I have seen him make what appear to be authoritative statements as if he is some kind of world expert which get shot down by his opponents. (In some of the subjects I know something about, I think rightly so -he’s quite rigid and often very dated in his historical knowledge.)"

Oh really?

"As Hannam is quite confrontational , I expect he will get much of the same in return when his book comes out next month. For instance, he and the fellow bloggers on his site, have often ridiculed the fellow British philosopher A.C. Grayling,complete with funny pictures. Grayling will probably think they are small fry not worth replying to, but if he chooses to he may well decide to demolish Hannam in a review in one of the many papers he writes for."

Tee-hee! Looks like we have a fanboy (or potential sock-puppet) on our hands.

"Incidentally I found Closing of the Western Mind rather long and rambling ( I think you picked this up in your review, Tim) and felt Freeman could have focussed more directly on his argument."

Oh good, I'm so glad that you....

"As Herodotusismyhero points out, he has a much more recent book “AD 381”. It is just out in the States. It concentrates on the role of the emperor Theodosius in crushing freedom of thought. I really preferred it to Closing of the Western Mind because he focussed on one central issue and his case comes across much more strongly. He does also bring in a lot of new material published since Closing of the Western Mind.Tim mentioned it but it seems strange he didn’t concentrate his review on it rather than the dated CWM."

....are obviously....not....a....twit? Okay, which one is it:

Is he a sock puppet for Freeman?

Is he a Greyling fanboy?

Is he just a guy who James pissed off?

[bjorn]

A guy from the Internet infidels forum?

At least obviously a friend of Freeman whose thesis I would imagine bears well with "infidels". Extremely interesting how CF wriggles like a fish on the hook, cleverly avoiding to meet any of Tim's arguments and comments.

It is all about CF not being an "amateur" and not being "dead wrong" etc., mostly ad hominems (about himself;-)

Nothing substantial. IOW, exactly as expected.

[humphreyclarke]

I think this historyblogwatcher chap's complaint isn't so much with James as with my occasional rants against A.C. Grayling and the silly pictures which accompany them. In my defense, these were provoked by Grayling's inane articles for the Guardian which read like something out of the German Kulturekampf. Plus every blog needs some sort of pantomime villain. On Pharingula it's Ken Ham and John Kwok; on Jerry Coyne's blog its those 'accomadationists' and on 'Butterflies and Wheels' it now seems to be Madeline Bunting.

[turoldus]

Freeman and his followers have a curious view of history, it seems. Anyone according to them may proclam himself a historian just because he writes about history and calling an amateur an amateur is bad manners. The same applies to reviewers: John Carey and Richard Schlagel, none of whom a trained historian, trump James and Tim. Now imagine the same "logic" applied to biology and physics...

By the way, Carey's now famous review of Freeman's latest book can be found here. I'm not the kind to pass judgement on a book I have not read, but Freeman if Carey is to be trusted does seem to stick to his guns - and his view of Augustine is odd to say the least.

[humphreyclarke]

This is dragging on a bit:

www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6774463840913796679&postID=254788387959247921

'In response to yours, Bjorn Are. I am glad I got you interested. I wasn’t really wanting to say more on this blog, but how could I resist the request.

If one reads James Hannam’s blogs one hardly knows what his ‘field’ is as he seems to take on everything. Good luck to him if that is how he wants to spend his time. Which of the many fields he claims to be an expert in do you want an up-to-date history on? I notice he had a Ph D in sixteenth century science so THAT is presumably his field ( these are the standards set by Tim’s site- never wander outside what you have a PhD on) but his new book seems to be altogether on an earlier period even back to the first millennium AD. As the context in which ‘science’ - a very difficult concept to use in any case - was very different in the sixteenth century from what it was earlier - he will presumably be subject to the same criticism that Tim has of Freeman, and may well make of Hannam, that he is a non-specialist in the subject he has chosen . Still one wishes him well because bringing out a book for the first time is a big moment and God’s Philosophers deserves to be read on its own merits as I hope it will be. My worry ,as already expressed, is that Hannam is known for his particular biases, has stirred up many opponents and so it will NOT be reviewed on its own merits. This will not prevent some Christian websites presenting it as one of the greatest works of scholarship of all time.
I made it clear that anyone genuinely interested in James Hannam’s views can find them on line. If you are being lazy about doing your own research, you can go on to the Why Evolution is True website by one of my intellectual heroes Jerry Coyne. Coyne takes on Hannam for misrepresenting his (Coyne’s) views and concludes that he had bigger fish to fry. There is a link from there to the butterfliesandwheels.com website where Hannam’s views on science and religion are subject to a detailed and well argued refutation to which he seems unable to provide any effective kind of answer.

I remember browsing a debate on the ‘fall ‘ of the Roman empire. Anyone who knows anything about this subject, knows that one has to make complex assessments of the effectivenessof the ‘barbarians’,the economic and political strength of the empire, tactics of specific emperors and soldiers, and so on and so on. Its a horrendously difficult area. Who should pop up out of nowhere but the expert on sixteenth century science, one James Hannam, who provided in a single paragraph the authoritative explanation of the fall! I am sorry but I can’t remember what it was.

It’s up to him how he spends his time, but I don’t think he does himself any favours especially if he wants to be respected as an academic as presumably he does. Why not concentrate on just one field and make oneself a respected authority on it?'

Good to see the Guardian article is still getting some fallout!.