A useful reference for students and diehard fans of church history, but includes more than general readers will want to know.
The history of a 2,000-year-old office whose holders have shaped world history, from St. Peter to Benedict XVI.
Roman Catholic tradition identifies popes as the successors to Peter, who supposedly was—or at least helped appoint—the first bishop of Rome. Yet in fact Christianity had no bishops until well after Peter’s death, notes Collins (Research Fellow/Univ. of Edinburgh; Visigothic Spain, 2004, etc.). This kind of mythologizing has carried the papacy through numerous near-death experiences. Secular protectors, extraordinary pontiffs and luck (or providence, depending on your take) have also played a part in helping popes expand their spiritual authority even as their temporal powers shriveled. The narrative covers such epic events as the schism between Rome and Eastern Christianity, the Crusades, church councils and the Protestant Reformation. But it does not neglect peculiarities like the Cadaver Synod, in which a medieval pope’s enemies exhumed his corpse, arrayed it in robes before an ecclesiastical court and convicted the moldering remains of perjury and breaking canon law. Collins sprints through the centuries, but his detail-saturated prose makes the book seem long. Grand themes bob in a sea of names and dates, with even insignificant popes and other bit players rating fleeting mentions. The author’s conclusions on major, controversial figures are invariably balanced. He judges as “far from proven” the case against Pius XII, whose failure to condemn the Nazis’ treatment of Jews led historian John Cornwell to dub him Hitler’s Pope (1999). Collins does acknowledge that Pius “was at the very least constrained by the habitual caution that made him a good Vatican diplomat rather than a natural leader of men in time of crisis.” John Paul II gets kudos for charisma and combating communism, but criticism for opposing artificial contraception to halt AIDS and inertia in the face of sex abuse by priests.
A useful reference for students and diehard fans of church history, but includes more than general readers will want to know.Pub Date: March 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-465-01195-7
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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