The Revolution

Brown proved that intellectual content — puzzles, historical mysteries, debates about religion and art — could power mass-market thriller fiction. He found that millions of readers were hungry for stories that questioned powerful institutions and offered alternative histories.

The Church's hostile response unintentionally confirmed the novel's central argument: that powerful institutions will aggressively defend their stories against challenge. Whether Brown's specific historical claims hold up under scholarly scrutiny matters far less than the conversation the book started.