Eamon Duffy, President of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is also the author of The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (0 300 06076 9, pb. [pound]13.95*) and The Voices of Morebath (0 300 09185 0, [pound]16.95*), both published by Yale University Press.
"A minor masterpiece which is everything good, popular history ought to be... The most comprehensive single-volume history of the popes in print." John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph "Duffy enlivens the long march through church history with anecdotes that bring the different pontiffs to life... Saints and Sinners is a remarkable achievement." Piers Paul Read, The Times "The best one-volume history of the papacy ever written." T. F. X. Noble "A distinguished text... offering plenty of historical facts and sobering, valuable judgments." Henry Chadwick, New York Times Book Review "Will intrigue the faithful as well as the skeptical." Economist "A wonderful history of the popes... a book that will fascinate anyone wishing to better understand the history of the Catholic Church and the forces that have shaped the role of the papacy." Gloria J. Tysl, Christian Century
"A minor masterpiece which is everything good, popular history ought to be... The most comprehensive single-volume history of the popes in print." John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph "Duffy enlivens the long march through church history with anecdotes that bring the different pontiffs to life... Saints and Sinners is a remarkable achievement." Piers Paul Read, The Times "The best one-volume history of the papacy ever written." T. F. X. Noble "A distinguished text... offering plenty of historical facts and sobering, valuable judgments." Henry Chadwick, New York Times Book Review "Will intrigue the faithful as well as the skeptical." Economist "A wonderful history of the popes... a book that will fascinate anyone wishing to better understand the history of the Catholic Church and the forces that have shaped the role of the papacy." Gloria J. Tysl, Christian Century
With characteristic flair, the sour Latinist Tertullian called Rome "the happy church on which the Apostles poured forth all their teaching together with their blood." Such emotional extremes, axiomatic of Tertullian, apply equally to papal histories, often given to the heights and depths of spiritual excitement. Duffy (Magdalene Coll., Cambridge) offers this abundantly illustrated, amiably presented history to accompany a multinational television series for Britain, France, and Ireland. Such a pedigree often provokes disdain among bookish sorts, but Duffy's scholarship and enthusiasm overcome the book's populist roots. While not necessarily uncovering anything strikingly new and more akin to a handbook than a treatise, this work merits applause for providing a people's papal retrospective. Those wishing for heavier intellectual discourse should seek out Owen Chadwick's The Popes and European Revolution (1981) or practically anything by Peter Hebblethwaite.‘Sandra Collins, Northern Tier Lib., Pittsburgh
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