Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: A Concise History of the Catholic Church by Thomas Bokenkotter ISBN: 0-385-50584-1 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 20 January, 2004 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.38 (26 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Concise History of the Catholic Church
Comment: The Book A Concise History of the Catholic Church is an excellent read. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in either Catholicism, History or both. The writer does an excellent job of squeezing 2000 years of world history into one book. This may not be the most detailed of all the books writen on the churches history but it is a great book for anyone whom is interested but doesn't want to read an entire series of books.
Rating: 2
Summary: Needs more history and less editorializing
Comment: This book is an interesting although deeply flawed look at Church history over the past 2,000 years. It is less a history than a collection of moments in time without a true feel for the flow of events. In addition, many prominent events are simply ignored or passed over with barely a mention. Let me give a few brief examples. Little is said of the collapse of the Church in North Africa where it was thriving (Saint Augustine was a bishop in Hippo) until it was replaced by Islam. The Crusades are barely discussed and their effects on relations with the peoples of the Middle East aren't discussed at all. The Thirty Years War is given a single paragraph. This is surprising because this war turned Europe from a continent of nations based on religion into a continent of nations where national loyalties were more important than religious loyalties. The loss of power of the religious leaders in Europe can be traced to that war.
This is fairly typical of the book. It discusses many prominent people such as Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome in some detail but fails to put their lives into a perspective of overall Church history. The flow of the book is often interrupted by jumps ahead and then back again so sometimes it is confusing because it isn't clear as to what events have occurred and which are still to come. There is also a tendency in the book to move too fast at times and introduce characters with a sentence and then never mention them again.
All that being said, the book is not a complete failure. Taken from a Catholic viewpoint, the book is an acceptable, although incomplete, introduction to Church history. The author does not try to hide the bad acts of the Church that led to the Reformation, for example, and instead points out the critical failures of the Church. His discussion of some key Protestant leaders such as Luther and Calvin will enlighten those who knew little of their lives. In fact, the book is at its best when the author ignores trying to write a history and instead gives us short biographies of key figures in Church history.
The last part of the book covering the period since Vatican II was the most disappointing to me. The author abandons any attempt to write a history and instead turns the book into an editorial about the Church's failure to become "modern" in the last 40 years. Strangely, this is the longest part of the book. I'm not sure how a book claiming to be a history can discuss 1,960 years of Church history in 400 pages and then the remaining 40 years are given more than 100 pages. Overall, the book is fair as an introduction to Church history until about 1900 but a failure as an editorial on the current Church.
Rating: 5
Summary: A good starting point...
Comment: But certainly not the end all. Even still I'm giving it 5 stars because I think this is a wonderful way for readers new to the topic to get their first grasp on such a tremendous topic. As to some readers' concerns that the author is "liberal", well I have yet to find an historian, author, or human being who doesn't have a perspective. It is most strange to me that people should becomes so vitriolic about the fact that Thomas Bokenkotter comes from a social justice perspective. Don't worry--It's a good thing!
 |
Title: Protestant Christianity, Second Edition by John Dillenberger, Claude Welch ISBN: 0023296011 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 05 January, 1988 List Price(USD): $34.80 |
 |
Title: The Catholic Church : A Short History by Hans Kung ISBN: 0812967623 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
 |
Title: A People Adrift : The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America by Peter Steinfels ISBN: 0684836637 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 05 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
 |
Title: A Popular History of the Catholic Church by Carl Koch ISBN: 0884893952 Publisher: St. Mary's Press Pub. Date: February, 1997 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: Dynamic Catholicism by Thomas Bokenkotter ISBN: 0385232438 Publisher: Image Books Pub. Date: 05 August, 1986 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
