John T. McGreevy

As a cradle Catholic born after Vatican II I actually didn't know much about Catholic history or the Church before Vatican II. I realize that a book detailing 400 years of history is going to leave out a lot, but I feel much more informed about the history of the Church and the current debates within and about it. A book like this should also be seen as a starting point for further study/learning. Before beginning this book I had traveled through Nagasaki to visit Churches there during Holy Week. That the French missionaries were part of the larger ultramontane movement is something I look forward to learning more about. I also look forward to reading more about Jacques Maritain, who influenced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Vatican II, and postwar Christian Democratic thinking. It seems both are a bit passe these days, but I have never been known to be interested in what is in vogue at any particular moment, and I am more interested in transnational, global ideals even as the world seems to be in retreat from those ideas.… (more)

For two centuries, Catholicism has played a profound and largely unexamined role in America's political and intellectual life. Emphasizing the communal over the individual, protections for workers and the poor over market freedoms, and faith in eternal verities over pragmatic compromises, the Catholic worldview has been a constant foil to liberalism. Putting recent scandals in the Church and the media's response in a much larger context, this stimulating history is a model of nuanced scholarship and provocative reading.… (more)