Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD

Fascinating insight into the meaning and history of money in the Church.

Learned how the words he didn't know should be pronounced! It sounded a bit like he didn't know what he was talking about; this didn't really fit with the text which seemed so well researched and scholarly. But he did have a nice voice!

It sounded like the narrator had not pre-read the text. I had trouble concentrating because I had to mentally correct the narration to make sense of it and it became laborious,.

This is a book of outstanding scholarship written with great clarity by one of the most knowledgable and trustworthy historians of the period of the late Roman empire. Brown uses the issue of wealth as a key to enter a complex social and religious world that saw the emergence of Christianity into the ancient hierarchies of power, prestige, and vast wealth that had powered the Roman empire for many centuries.
Brown's narrative is fascinating and relatively easy to follow and brings to life the variety of characters and interests of the period in a wonderfully vivid way. He leads the listener to understand the nuances of primary texts while evaluating many current debates among historians with a sure touch.
Brown writes as a person who has lived in the world he describes for many years and understands its nooks and crannies like a native. I emerged from the long journey with a tremendous sense of gratitude for Brown's guidance through an important historical period in which modern prejudices could easily distort my perceptions.

Cooper reads the book with great clarity and articulation. My only problem with the narration was that quite a number of the names of ancient people or texts or technical terms seemed mispronounced. It did not seem in keeping with the high scholarly quality of the book otherwise.

I highly recommend this work. It is very substantive and assumes that the listener has a basic knowledge of the period covered. But it certainly rewards careful listening.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across this Audible Inc. production of Prof. Peter Brown's newest book "Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD. Brown, the author of the best biography of Augustine of Hippo, is a careful meticulous and and well-respected historian of the late Roman Empire. He writes with authority.

In "Through the Eye of the Needle" Brown uses different sources (artefacts, catacombs, archaeological insights, written texts etc.) to reconstruct what has traditionally been seen as the time of the Roman Empire's decline. Already in the awkward dates that he uses in the sub-title of his book 350-550 AD and not for instance 324 (when Constantine was became emperor over the whole Roman Empire), Brown distances himself from traditional top-down historiography that focus important persons and places. While using important figures, like Maxentius, Augustine and others, he aims to document and interpret the way the not-so-important people of the late Western Roman Empire understood wealth.

He uses wealth at the key to sketch a different but more believable picture of late Roman Empire and its different churches' rise to prominence in its society. I found his take on the Pelagian controversy very interesting and enlightening.

Fleet Cooper did a fair job in reading the book. I am not sure if it is Brown's writing style or Cooper's way of reading, but it felt that some sentences were often to long and Cooper would break for breath making it difficult to comprehend a whole idea as a thought unit. That said, Cooper's pronunciation of foreign languages and the general ease of his reading made it pleasant to listen to.

Not everybody would like this book. At times it is very technical and might even be too thorough to some people's taste. It is an academic work and probably a trendsetter that cannot be ignored by historians reflecting on this part of history in future. Yet it might not be to the taste of someone who wants a light read.

It comes highly recommended. I hope Audible will see their way open to publish more of Prof. Brown's books in audio format.

The reader has no clue about any of the subject. He mispronounces nearly EVERY main name: Cyprian (says "SIGH-pree-un"), Paulinus, Augustine (Ah-Gus-TEEN), bishopric (buh-SHOP-rick), apposite, etc., etc. Latin is mangled as much as the French, not to mention the Hebrew. A reader need not be a scholar, but if he had asked a first-year student how to pronounce the vocab he could have improved it immensely. SO frustrating! Also reads like he's not always quite sure where the sentence is going. Badly done.

The book is a tour de force, and standard high scholarship as one would expect from Peter Brown. It is rich, interesting, and immensely provocative.

If he took a first year course in Roman history or theology....

Frustration that he could so systematically mispronounce names and terms. It stands in such utter contrast to the scholarship of the book itself that I couldn't stomach it.

Again and again, Brown considers traditional interpretations major events and personalities in this period, and then offers a new interpretation, sometimes his own, but more often a condensation of an emerging consensus among Late Roman scholars. He is very much a cheerleader for recent developments in the study of this period, often citing and complementing, the work of others. This book is not simply a narrative study, although it does generally progress chronologically. It is also an exploration of how historians work, and a lesson in interpreting sources. Brown is a confident but unpretentious guide through a territory about which I knew nothing aside from a few offhand generalizations. As I near the end, I not only feel that I have a vivid and insightful understanding of some of the major figures (Augustine, Jerome, Paulinus of Nola), but also a real sense of how people's ideas and feelings about wealth evolved, and how these developments interacted with the wider context of a disintegrating empire and an emerging new order.

Brown studiously avoids both political history and discussion of doctrinal differences, both of which are fascinating, but available elsewhere. So you won't learn anything consequential about who the emperors were, or theological beliefs of the Manicheans or Arians or Donatists. It is a bit jarring at times to skip over what seems like essential information, but I have to grudgingly admit that Brown's precise, unwavering focus pays off. In the end, the vision of evolving attitudes towards wealth is unclouded by any distractions.

The book is long, and the topic obscure, but if that doesn't scare you off, this is a rewarding experience

The author is perhaps the greatest living historian of this period. His literary style is poetically vivid and his use of metaphor makes voices long since silenced by death seem momentarily to tremble with life. He shifts between the grand vistas in which an entire horizon is laid before one, and darts down to show the smallest of details. It is truly an astonishing achievement.

Surely not. It's a lengthy audiobook but is so delicious that I could have wished it longer.

The narrator has a lovely voice and I enjoyed listening to his reading. He often mangles pronunciation of words that are not English and it seems from other reviews that many find this grating. I noticed it but it found it a minor part of the experience of listening to the audiobook.

I like history but this is way too particular for me to enjoy and keep interest for such a long listen. Someone with a major in Church history for that period might appreciate though.

something more general (in history still)

The narrator is excellent and probably the reason why I could hold on until mid point in the book.

I would use the abridged edition

The potential subject matter was very good, but I lacked knowledge of places and names to enjoy it.

For those that are interested in Christian history and/or Christian understanding of wealth and economics this new book by Peter Brown is well worth paying attention to. It is long, but detailed look at the late Roman Empire. There are several places where Brown is going against the common understanding of that time period, but I think he well documents them.

The narration is fine, although there are so many foreign words (ancient Greek, Latin, Italian, etc) and some of them are not pronounced the way I think is right. I may be wrong, but it was a bit irritating. But the reading was good and the book was worth reading.

There was a chance I was not going to finish this book because it was a little dry and there was so much necessary information the author was putting forth. But after listening I believe I am a better and informed Christian and would recommend the book with the caveat that it is a little difficult to really get into the book, in the beginning.
One of the things Peter Brown does well is provide a sense of the culture and environment people lived in for the modern reader. He made me realize my concepts of what was wealth and poverty did not match up to late Roman views of wealth, and the importance of citizenship, and poverty. He translates the past for the modern reader. Unfortunately it take a while to translate and can be a tad uninteresting.