AUGUSTINE THE AFRICAN
268pp., maps, hardback, d.w., First UK Edition, Profile Books, London, 2025
ISBN: 9781788167505
First published in the USA in 2025.
A revisionist history of the life of Augustine of Hippo (354–430), also known as Saint Augustine, that upends conventional wisdom and traces core ideas of Christian thought and Western philosophy to their origins on the African continent.
Born in Numidia, a coastal region in what is now Algeria, Augustine's African origins and Berber heritage profoundly impacted his writing and understanding of the world, and yet have been obscured and erased by generations of scholars and historians.
Augustine scholar Catherine Conybeare demonstrates that Augustine's seminal books were written neither in Rome nor in Milan, but in Africa, where he had returned during a time when the Western Roman Empire was crumbling. Drawing on extant letters and other evidence, and the Augustinian texts themselves, she retraces his travels, revealing how his works emerge from an exile’s perspective within an African context.
"A long-needed survey of the great theologian’s hinterland. Augustine’s African identity both exposed him to condescension and prejudice from his contemporaries and gave him invaluable critical distance from the prevailing ideologies of empire. His contemporary significance becomes clearer than ever in this excellent study." Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury
"Catherine Conybeare’s vital and exhilarating biography of Augustine portrays him, newly, in the context of his African society and identity. Through her meticulously researched yet utterly compelling account, we live with [Augustine] through the upheavals that shaped his faith and his work. Conybeare’s is an important contribution and this is, simply, a wonderful book." Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History
Catherine Conybeare is Leslie Clark Professor of Greek, Latin, classical studies and humanities at Bryn Mawr College. She has received awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, among others. Her books include The Routledge Guide to Augustine's Confessions and The Irrational Augustine. She lives in Pennsylvania.