n - Eureka Street

BooKsA NDREW H AMIL TONThe thousand year itchReformation, Christianity and the World 1500-2000, Felipe Fernandez-Annesto & Derek Wilson,Bantam, London, ISBN 0593 027493, RRP $39.95Millennium, A history of the last thousand years, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Simon and Schuster,New York, 1995. ISBN 0 684 82536 8 RRP $32.95T HE STYLES IN WHIC H HISTORY is tOO, were hindered and helped by bothwritten are legion. For Herodotus, tosides in equal and indistinguishablewrite history was to tell the storiesm easure. The authors argue thatwhich created t h e tribe. For theories that attribute decisive influ-Thucydides it was to sit in judgment:ence on the shaping of the desirable orspeeches, narratives and commentaryundesirable features of modernity ofshowed how nations could rise or falleither protestant or catholic ideas oweaccording to their fundamental m oralmore to residual religious prejudicegravity of their leaders. For Manningthan to dispassionate reflection. FromClark, it was to uncover the mythsthe authors' perspective, too, the plightwhich m ade events worth remember-that each group of churches faces ining.the contemporary world is the same:ForFernandez-Armestowhowroteto re tain christian identity andthe very successful Milleniwn and co-commend christian allegiance in theauthored Reformation with Derekface of a changed cultural world.Wilson, t h e style of h ist ory isIt is charac teristic of such atelevisual. He uses documentary technique who has a more restricted view. In the case perspective to believe that the differencesfamiliar in sports commentary: the shot of of Millennium, this correspondent is one which divide protestant or catholic fromground and city seen from the air-balloon, whose view is centred in Europe or the their fellow members and unite them withthe dental technician's close-up of Shane Atlantic ocean .Warne's face as an appeal is turned down, The early chapters of the book deal withand the voice of Tony Grieg naming the Islam, Chinese, Cambodian and Africancash value of what we have seen.kingdoms, arriving only later in Europe,Themovementfromthepanoramicshot suggestively described as a small promontothe closeup sets local events into a broader tory of Asia. The book argues that thecontext, encourages a feeling of superiority Atlantic centre of civilisation which hasover the protagonists who know only their developed only relatively recently with theimmediate surroundings, and builds trust dominance, first of Europe and later of thein the commentator w ho possesses both United States, is a temporary phenomenondistant and close perspective. It establishes which will be replaced by the more typicalthe dramaticironyby whichweknowbetter configurations of centres of power aroundthan the actors in the drama the nature of the Pacific.the events which they compose.The conversation partner within Reformationis the Christian who still looks atBoth Reformation andMillenium switchfrom the intimate particular event to a the Reformation from within the perspectiveof a church shaped by earlier polemic.universal perspective, accompanied by theconfident authorial voice. Millenium The authors argue that such a perspectiveintroduces the conceit of a galactic museumkeeperto whom a thousand years and a impulses that drove both Reformers andignores the similarities between thesingle world are a trifle, and who must Catholics and between what the kinds ofselect carefully for preservation a few m onuments from this tiny space. Reformation strains of Christendom gave expression tochurch that each tried to establish. Bothinvites the reader to look at the events of the powerful desire for reform and forthe Protestant Reformation and the response personal conversion that animated lateto it from a perspective that goes back to the medieval christendom. Both adapted to themedieval church and extends to a present pressures of a changing world in similarwhere the differences between catholic and ways: in power, neither side tolerated theprotestant are marginal.other; when out of power, each dem andedAs in television documentaries, the toleration.larger view presupposes a debating partner Scientific and commercial revolutions,m embers of the other tradition, will bemore important than those which dividechurches from one another. Approaches toworship, discipline, doctrine and relationswith society mark divisions within churches,but create en emies and alliesIacross church boundaries.N R EFORMATION AND M ILLENNIUM, the broadvision is complemented by the personaland particular anecdote. Each chapter beginswith the observation of a single person or alocalised event. These anecdotes introducethe broader argument of the chapter andgive it weight. It is perhaps significant thatmany of these narratives introduce travellersbetween cultural worlds: they supportthe presumption that the localised can beappreciated accurately only from a distance.In television, the movem ent from theuniversal to the particular case encouragesappalling arrogan ce on the part of thecommentators. In R eformation, thistendency is modified by joint-authorshipand the self-knowledge of the writers, andalso by their resistance to any deterministaccount of history. The tone of the writingdisplays the assured firmness of the DailyTelegraph or the Specta tor, but with anadditional touch of modesty.The limitations inherent in m oving38 EUREKA STREET • MAY 1997