Book on Papal History (on Kindle)
February 26, 2013 8:26 AM

Can you recommend a good book on papal history that is solid on facts and theology, honest about blemishes, but doesn't revel in scandal? Oh, and I hope I can find it in a Kindle version.

I've reviewed this ask, but the two best-looking-to-me options there (Eerdman's Handbook to the History of Christianity and Eamon Duffy's Saints and Sinners) are not available on Kindle. I really want a Kindle version. Any length is fine, scholarly is fine as long as it's readable to a non-specialist. Thanks!
posted by OrangeDisk to Religion & Philosophy (6 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
You might like John Julius Norwich's Absolute Monarchs. A bit more of a popular history, but still pretty comprehensive.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:59 AM on February 26, 2013


I haven't read it, but O'Malley is a well respected church historian. Any book by him will have critical elements, but not be polemical in either direction.
posted by Jahaza at 9:47 AM on February 26, 2013


Seconding Norwich's Absolute Monarchs.
posted by naturalog at 11:05 AM on February 26, 2013


You're right, Duffy's Saints and Sinners is not available as an e-book, but his Ten Popes Who Shook the World is.
posted by davemack at 3:43 PM on February 26, 2013


Seconding Saints and Sinners but, if you can't get it, Ten Popes.
posted by resurrexit at 3:26 PM on February 27, 2013


The Papacy: A Brief History by James Corbett is very good.
posted by Birchpear at 10:01 PM on April 10, 2013


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