VATICAN COUNCIL II

This is a new, one-volume revision of the pseudonymous Xavier Rynne's notable, critically acclaimed, and commercially viable four volumes on the four sessions of Vatican II. This single volume enjoys all the virtues of its component works: it is pithy, perceptive, often amusing, gossipy, exact, comprehensive, and definitive. The substance of the four predecessor volumes is reproduced here intact; a little fat has been trimmed, some of the documentation has been excised, and some of the episodes which had been repeated from one volume to the next in the original editions have been unified--all of which is to the good. In a word, just as Rynne's original four volumes were the final, and most enjoyable, word on the four sessions individually, so is Vatican Council II the ultimate, most informative, and most readable of all the books on the Council as a whole. It is the book on the Council for libraries as well as for individuals.