This book is volume three in my four-volume history of Christendom. It leads the reader through six of the West’s most creative centuries, passing beneath ceilings painted by Michelangelo into libraries frequented by Karl Marx.

Continuing the epic story of the rise and fall of what the West once was told in earlier volumes, it explains how, between the Italian Renaissance and the Russian Revolution, secular humanism displaced traditional Christianity to become the source of modern culture. The result was some of the most illustrious music, science, philosophy, and literature ever produced.

But the cultural “reorientation” from paradise to utopia—from an experience of the kingdom of heaven to one bound exclusively by this world—all but eradicated the traditional culture of the West, leaving it at the beginning of the twentieth century without roots in anything transcendent.

The book can be ordered online from Ancient Faith Store or Amazon.