Charles Freeman is one of those of an earlier generation who were still enamoured by the myth of the 'Dark Ages' - a term that has fallen out of favour by historians because of its highly polemical (and very late) origins.
May I suggest James Hannam's 'God's Philosophers' (Icon Books, 2010), or Ronald Numbers' 'Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion' (Harvard, 2010)?
It's also been addressed more recently by historians of science in for instance, 'Of Popes and Unicorns' by David Hutchings and James Ungureanu (OUP, 2021) and 'Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes: The Strange Tale of How the Conflict of Science and Christianity Was Written Into History' (Cascade, 2021) by Derrick Peterson. I would love to see reviews of those!
Charles Freeman is one of those of an earlier generation who were still enamoured by the myth of the 'Dark Ages' - a term that has fallen out of favour by historians because of its highly polemical (and very late) origins.
May I suggest James Hannam's 'God's Philosophers' (Icon Books, 2010), or Ronald Numbers' 'Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion' (Harvard, 2010)?
It's also been addressed more recently by historians of science in for instance, 'Of Popes and Unicorns' by David Hutchings and James Ungureanu (OUP, 2021) and 'Flat Earths and Fake Footnotes: The Strange Tale of How the Conflict of Science and Christianity Was Written Into History' (Cascade, 2021) by Derrick Peterson. I would love to see reviews of those!
This review would be an excellent way to segue into a review of Freeman's follow-up, The Reopening of the Western Mind. Just a suggestion.