CATHOLICS IN COLONIAL AMERICA

This is probably the only book to appear in modern times which gives an incisive, comprehensive, and critical historical appraisal of the Catholic Church in America during the colonial period. Father Tracy's approach is geographic rather than treating each of the colonial areas -- French, Spanish, English -- separ although the events of each chapter are intelligently related, when necessary useful, to one another, and the over-all impression is one of synthesis rather than analysis. Ellis' authority as a scholar, his unusually literate and lively and the importance of his subject make this a work of interest to everyone, scholar, student, or general reader. It is an important contribution to the literature of Catholic, and of American, history.