Dominion

The Making of the Western Mind

Tom Holland

Binding design by Noma Bar

Dominion is Tom Holland’s epic exploration of how everything we do has been shaped by Christianity, a subversive sect that grew to a religion. This beautiful Folio Society edition has a striking binding design by Noma Bar with 24 pages of colour images.

‘This book explores what it is that made Christianity so subversive and so disruptive …’

Tom Holland

How could an obscure preacher in Judaea, condemned to suffer a slave’s death, create a moral vision that transformed the world? In an epic narrative spanning 2,000 years, Tom Holland traces the inexorable rise of Christianity. Dominion is not a conventional work of religious history, but the story of how a creed came to dominate the Western mind – beginning with the Romans, whose brutal social order it overthrew. On an exhilarating journey from antiquity to Christendom, it finds the imprint of the cross in surprising places: Dominion’s cast includes not just St Paul and Francis of Assisi but the Marquis de Sade, Nietzsche and Napoleon. As Holland reaches the age of Martin Luther King and the Beatles, he argues that the modern West is ‘a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions’ – a list in which he includes gender equality, human rights, scientific inquiry and even atheism. With 24 pages of superb illustrations and an elegant cover design by the award-winning illustrator Noma Bar, the Folio Society has created the consummate edition of an extraordinary, provocative book.

PRODUCTION DETAILS

Binding design by Noma Bar 

Three-quarter bound in blocked cloth, with a printed and blocked metallic cloth front board 

Set in Cardo with Superior Title as display 

592 pages 

Frontispiece plus 24 pages of colour plates (54 images in total) 

Plain slipcase 

10˝ x 6¾˝    

Printed in Slovakia

A SUPERBLY DESIGNED EDITION

‘If great books encourage you to look at the world in an entirely new way, Dominion is a very great book indeed.’

Dominic Sandbrook

One of Britain’s foremost authors on the ancient world, Tom Holland has written a string of acclaimed histories – three of which, Rubicon, Persian Fire and Dynasty, have previously appeared in Folio editions. To produce a cover for Dominion, The Folio Society turned to Noma Bar, a prolific, international award-winning artist. His design is a triumph of visual simplicity: a modern skyline and tower reflecting their ancient counterparts, with the whole forming a cross. Inside, the image selection is energetic and inspiring. Each era in the book’s historical sweep is represented in the six sections of full-colour illustrations, from Roman ceramics featuring Paul the Apostle and Renaissance oil portraits of Mary Magdalene to photographs portraying slavery in the USA, celebrations at the fall of the Berlin Wall and Nelson Mandela’s election victory and the burning of records by The Beatles.

BIOGRAPHIES

About Tom Holland

Tom Holland is one of Britain’s foremost writers on the ancient world. He is the author of Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic (2003; Folio 2016); Millennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom (2008); Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West (2005; Folio 2018); In the Shadow of the Sword  (2012); Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar (2015; Folio 2021), Athelstan: The Making of England (2016), Dominion (2019, Folio 2024) and Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age (2023). Persian Fire won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award, and Rubicon was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History. Holland has also published a translation of Herodotus’ Histories (2013) and has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio. In 2007, he was the winner of the Classical Association prize, awarded to ‘the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome’ and he is co-host of the extraordinarily popular podcast The Rest Is History.

About Noma Bar

Noma Bar is a graphic designer, illustrator and artist. His work has appeared in many media publications including: Time Out London, BBC, Random House, the Observer, Economist and Wallpaper. Bar has illustrated over 100 magazine covers, published over 550 illustrations and released three books of his work: Guess Who - The Many Faces of Noma Bar, Negative Space and Bittersweet a 680 page 5 volume monograph produced in a Limited Edition of 1000 published by Thames & Hudson. Bar's work has become well known throughout the world, winning many industry awards; more recently a prestigious Gold Clio for his animation & direction work for the New York Presbyterian Hospital, a campaign to highlight new frontiers in cancer treatments. He has won a Yellow Pencil award at the D&AD Professional Awards and his London Design Festival exhibition 'Cut It Out', was selected as one of the highlights of the festival. The project was nominated in the graphics category for the Design Museum, Designs of the Year.