BOOK RECOMMENDATION:

A quick book recommendation.  On my drive home from Michigan yesterday I started listening to a book, read to me by my older gen Kindle (don’t have one yet?  US HERE – UK HERE) by Rodney Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History.

US HERE
UK HERE
ITALY HERE

It’s great.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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7 Comments

  1. jselson says:

    Amazing timing, I just got my copy of the book in this morning from Amazon!

  2. MotherTeresa says:

    I am an amateur history buff and read this book as soon as I heard about it, but without great expectations. I have a collection of hundreds of history books, both Catholic and secular. Many of the best ones are too detailed to recommend to the casual reader, so while I personally enjoy them I don’t expect other people to take the same interest. I hoped this would be good but didn’t expect anything earth-shaking.

    **This book is earth-shaking**. It is Superlative! It is Fantastic. It is extremely well written, brilliantly researched and convincingly argued. Is not difficult to read, addresses most of the universally misunderstood issues of history, and packs an enormous, irrefutable punch to the systematic anti-Catholic bias in virtually all popular histories.

    It’s not just my impression. Check out the Amazon reviews. Almost all 5’s except for a single, utterly hysterical 1 (bonus!!!). Buy this book, read it, and pass it on to everyone you know who could possibly be interested.

    The anti-Catholic bias in most histories is glaring to anyone who has studied any period of history in depth , and even most Catholic histories do a poor job of making clear the systematic distortions of most popular histories. I love history, but it is almost impossible to correct such widespread misconceptions. I make my best effort, but it is an almost impossible task. This book is a battering ram of historical clarity and truth.

    One more thing: The fact that the author is not himself is not a practicing Catholic makes the book more, not less effective. As he says in his introduction: “I did not write this book in defense of the Church, I wrote it in defense of history.” Exactly! It is not only the Church that has been maligned and misunderstood by systematic distortion, but the entire field of history.

  3. majuscule says:

    And Rodney Stark is a Protestant!

    He was interviewed on Catholic Answers Focus.

    I am currently reading the book, too. I agree with MotherTeresa’s comment about the hysterical bad review on Amazon. I’m going to read it again when I finish the book just for laughs.

  4. Semper Gumby says:

    Excellent, this looks like a worthy companion to Stark’s Victory of Reason. This will have to go on the shelf next to Thomas Woods’ How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization.

    Yep, that one-star reviewer has an agenda.

  5. David Zampino says:

    I bought it as soon as it came out. It is outstanding!

  6. Dimitri_Cavalli says:

    Actually, Prof. Stark is an agnostic.

  7. Mary Jane says:

    Bought it (through your link) and started reading it (got the Kindle version, I have a Kindle app on my iPad) – it is excellent! It is really hard to put down.

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