Tom Holland Interviewed by Andrew Lownie

Historian, biographer and broadcaster Tom Holland explains how we came to think the way we do and why so many of the instincts of the western mind remain Christian despite growing doubts about the claims of religion.  After this event, he will receive the honorary fellowship of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.

Holland ranges from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480BC to today’s migration crisis in Europe and from Nebuchadnezzar to the Beatles as he explores what made Christianity so revolutionary and disruptive and how it came to saturate the mind-set of Latin Christendom. He says Christian concepts have been repeatedly repackaged for non-Christian audiences. And he argues that humanist values do not lie in reason or evidence-based thinking but in the history of Christianity.

Holland is presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Making History and has written and presented television documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 on subjects ranging from ISIS to dinosaurs. He is author of many books including Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic, winner of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, and Persian Fire, winner of the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award. He is also winner of the Classical Association prize for ‘the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome’. Here he talks to author and literary agent Andrew Lownie.

Previous recipients of the honorary fellowship have been Alexander McCall Smith (2021) Joanne Harris (2019), Anthony Horowitz (2018), Dame Penelope Lively (2017), Sir Alan Ayckbourn (2016), David Lodge (2015), Jan Morris (2014), Sir Philip Pullman (2013), William Boyd (2012), Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (2011), Dame Antonia Byatt (2010) and Baroness P D James (2009).

This event is part of the festival’s programme on Christian tradition.