John W. OMalley

This is an important book with much to offer but it is also disappointing Its importance lies in three converging factors The first and most obvious is the subject Martin Luther is a person of almost mythic proportions in the history of the West By his prophetic stance he almost single-handed

This book as its subtitle indicates is a history of the Jesuits from their origins up to the present day It is well researched broadly learned sophisticated fast-paced sympathetic yet critical somewhat impressionistic in approach and sometimes breezy in style I recommend it Jonathan Wright

When the second edition of Thomas Bokenkotter rsquo s book appeared in 1990 the publisher boasted that over 125 000 copies were already in circulation Tens of thousands more have surely been sold in the meantime That fact alone testifies to the merits of the book and the need it has filled This

If you are interested in the Vatican and its workings you will find this a good read Paul Hofmann Austrian by birth was for 35 years a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and for some of those years chief of its Rome bureau He currently lives in Rome and has been an acute observer of t

If you like church history and especially if you know and like Rome you will like this book Desmond O rsquo Grady is an author and journalist who lives in Rome and is perhaps best known for his Rome Reshaped Jubilees 1300-2000 He is not a professional historian perhaps an advantage in this cas