About the Author

Born in 1928 and educated at Magdalene College, Oxford, Paul Johnson was editor of the influential English weekly, "The New Statesman, " from 1964-1970, and is now Director, New Statesman Publishing Company. Mr. Johnson's prodigious scholarship and varied interests are evident in the themes of his books. Since publication of "A History of Christianity" he has written "Enemies of Society, The Civilization of Ancient Egypt" and "Civilizations of the Holy Land."

Reviews

J. Enoch Powell The Daily Telegraph (London) It is astonishingly well done.

Malcolm Muggeridge New Statesman (London) Paul Johnson's study of Christianity, from his namesake Apostle to Pope John XXIII, more particularly in relation to the role in world history of the Roman Catholic Church and other institutional manifestations, can only be described as masterly. It combines a great wealth of scholarship, including many fascinating byways as well as the main highways, with a vigorous, confident style, a kind of innate intensity which carries the narrative along so that it rarely falters and is never dull.

Martin E. Marty The New York Times Book Review A reliable if hard-edged story of the public church.

Mayo Mohs Time An ambitious, magisterial and ultimately positive book.

Michael McCauley Commonweal That the history of Christianity can be lucidly surveyed in a single, comprehensive volume of 556 pages is no small accomplishment. To Paul Johnson's credit A History of Christianity neither skimps on significant details or wallows in scholarly fussiness. Johnson provides a panoramic overview of events which have shaped our twentieth century Western lifestyle far more than we realize....For economy of style combined with a sympathetic understanding of the nearly 2000 years of Christianity's conflicts as well as its glorious achievements, Johnson's History is exceptional.

Richard Marius The Christian Century Paul Johnson, an English Roman Catholic, has given us the best one-volume history of Christianity ever done.

Robert Kirsch Los Angeles Times Johnson has written a readable and provocative history based more on politics, economics and social and cultural facts than on theology....[He] bases his account on modern scholarship, achieves objectivity without aridity, arrives at the present age after examining the recurring cycles of religious response to situations.

W. H. C. Frend The New York Review of Books His is a tour de force, one of the most ambitious surveys of the history of Christianity ever attempted and perhaps the most radical. In eight sections, with a great range of reading and a knowledge that is never made tedious, he tells the story of the rise, greatness, and decline of Christianity.