A preeminent translator has translated a prominent book, producing an outcome that is magnetic and majestic. A timeless story comes alive, the strictures of state decadence narrated with clairvoyance, but the resolution drags us to an uncertain destination. Can there be a secular rapture? – Toyin Falola, Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, the University of Texas at Austin