What's a good book to read about the early history of Christianity?

by DonQuigleone

I feel like when it comes to reading about Christianity we have the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in Roman Judea, and then we have the medieval Catholic and orthodox church, but it's hard to find anything about the period in between, ie Christianity transitioning from a small movement in Judea immediately after Jesus's death, through spreading throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, becoming the official religion of the Roman empire and the Council of Nicaea and finally being spread to all the various pagan peoples migrating in and around the declining Roman empire, not to mention the other Christian movements that ultimately died out. Does anyone have any suggestions for how I might educate myself on this period? In particular I'm looking for a book that's :

Written from a neutral or academic perspective.
describes the history of Christianity from 0-~1000 ad in a generally broad or introductory way
goes into the social/cultural currents as well as the actual key events
goes into how Christian practice or theology changed over time.
Goes into the various other branches and heresies, such as Arianism, gnosticismn or nestorianism, and not just Nicene Christianity.

I'd appreciate any suggestions any of you might have! If you have any book recommendations that might address a smaller specific part of this quite broad topic that would also be helpful, thanks.

y_sengaku

Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200-1000, 10th Anniversary Revised Edition. Wiley Blackwell, 2013 (1995): is now a classic for early medieval Christianity, though the period up to ca. 200 is not covered in the book.
Wilken, Robert L. The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013: is the closest one OP is looking for, for its covering scope of time, but does not include so much heretic matters in the book.

GeschicteGeist

{The Rise of Christianity, by Rodney Stark} hits a couple of the pieces on your list. It covers roughly the first three centuries and is primarily a sociological account of how Christianity spread throughout the urban centers of the Empire. Stark doesn’t cover much in the way of theological controversy, but he does put together a number of pieces about how the community developed, the ongoing relationship between Christian and Jewish communities, and the role Christian responses to slavery, plague, and persecution helped draw in new worshippers.