Customer Reviews

A History of the Popes 1830-1914 (Oxford History of the Christian Church)

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Chadwick ends his book by stating that "it had not been the expectation of historians that they would be treated as if their work was seen to have something to do with understanding the faith of the Churches". I daresay that Chadwick's work has plenty to do with a better understanding of the Catholic faith in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

Regarding its content, the book's title is somehow humble. It includes far more than the history of Gregory XVI, Pius X, Leo XIII and Pius XI, it is a history of the Catholic Church in continental Europe in that period.

Regarding its form, the book is a pleasure for any reader (I was delightfully surprised, for I knew his "Secularization of the European mind in the 19th Century", excellent too, but not at all engaging). I would point out, for instance, the ability of Chadwick,to vividly draw, with a stroke of his pen, plenty of characters, not only the popes (e.g., his description of Bismarck).

Then, I do recommend this book to anyone (urbi et orbe!).

Professor Chadwick continues his history of Christianity by relating the stories of the 19th century Popes and their largely unhappy coexistence with the forces of science, capitalism, liberalism, nationalism, and the like. Professor Chadwick's dislike of all the above gives him common ground with , for example, Pius IX.

The structure of the book is straightforward and admirable. He begins in 1830 and goes to 1914, and stops. He makes few attempts to directly address any overarching themes. This is not to say that he shies away from generalizations. On the contrary, the book is awash with sweeping statements unsupported by notes. It reads like a very long example of the old Oxbridge weekly essay, and owes a good deal of its polish to the fact that it is not encumbered by the need to see the other side, or to balance one viewpoint with another.

The result is sometimes troublesome. We know that Pius IX was not universally popular, but Chadwick is not one to tell us why: he leads us to believe that all who disagreed with the Pontiff were wicked and stupid. This could be an interesting and refreshing viewpoint if it were supported with facts. It is not. There were a number of factual errors in key places which made me uneasy.

Chadwick, in his work on the Victorian Church, produced the definitive text on the subject. I had hoped that "History of the Popes 1830-1914" would be similarly authoritative. It is not that, not by a long ways. I did enjoy it, but I think it a book to be taken with a grain of salt, both for its failure to draw the larger picture, and for its surprising degree of bias.