When Jesus was born the world was in ferment: four great empires were undergoing the convulsions of globalisation. In the huge new multi-ethnic cities springing up across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia old allegiances and the traditions of family, village and tribe were being torn apart. Emperors struggled to create loyal subjects, merchants struggled to find their place in the new world order, the uprooted looked for new communities. They all turned to religion for the solution and the gods competed for their allegiance. This was a world rife with gods and messiahs, priests and warriors, elbowing their way around disrupted societies.
And Man Created God takes the reader on a dazzling geographical and intellectual journey across the evolving empires and kingdoms of the ancient world. Through vivid evocations of individual rulers and holy men, O'Grady shows how emperors sought to shape religion to their ends, and how religion shaped emperors and their subjects.
