I apologize for my recent absence here.

I’ve been so engrossed in my research for my upcoming book that I have fallen out of the habit of writing. I’m studying the history of morality in the West, particularly as it relates to race, from 1492 until the present. Naturally, the elephant in the room is Christianity.

At the dawn of the Early Modern Era, Christianity was synonymous with morality in Western Europe (religious tolerance was still in the distant future), which is why this project has to begin there. I’ve been reading Diarmaid MacCulloch’s The Reformation: A History and Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. The latter was made into a BBC documentary which I watched the other day.

While I don’t really care for the author, MacCulloch’s books are a good introduction to the subject and his bibliography is a jumping off point into more specialized sources. I plan to spend the next few months here exploring a dizzying array of Western philosophers and theologians – St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bernard of Clairvaux, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and many, many more.

In February, we spent the whole month exploring Africa for Black History Month 2018. In the past, I have written at length about the Caribbean. I think it will be fun to turn our attention to Europe and this time explore in depth the rise of the modern world.