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| | Features | ISBN13: 9780895260383Condition: NewNotes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
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| | Description | Ask a college student today what he knows about the Catholic Church and his answer might come down to one word: "corruption." But that one word should be "civilization." Western civilization has given us the miracles of modern science, the wealth of free-market economics, the security of the rule of law, a unique sense of human rights and freedom, charity as a virtue, splendid art and music, a philosophy grounded in reason, and innumerable other gifts that we take for granted as the wealthiest and most powerful civilization in history. But what is the ultimate source of these gifts? Bestselling author and professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. provides the long neglected answer: the Catholic Church. Woods’s story goes far beyond the familiar tale of monks copying manuscripts and preserving the wisdom of classical antiquity. In How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, you’ll learn: · Why modern science was born in the Catholic Church · How Catholic priests developed the idea of free-market economics five hundred years before Adam Smith · How the Catholic Church invented the university · Why what you know about the Galileo affair is wrong · How Western law grew out of Church canon law · How the Church humanized the West by insisting on the sacredness of all human life No institution has done more to shape Western civilization than the two-thousand-year-old Catholic Church—and in ways that many of us have forgotten or never known. How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization is essential reading for recovering this lost truth. | |
| | Product Details | | Author: | Thomas E. Woods Jr | | Hardcover: | 256 pages | | Publisher: | Regnery Publishing, Inc. | | Publication Date: | May 02, 2005 | | Language: | English | | ISBN: | 0895260387 | | Product Width: | 6.25 inches | | Product Height: | 9.25 inches | | Package Length: | 9.1 inches | | Package Width: | 6.3 inches | | Package Height: | 1.1 inches | | Package Weight: | 1.15 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 109 reviews |
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3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Lots of Need to Know Information May 24, 2010
There is a lot of good, need-to-know information in this book, especially for Catholics who really don't know their history. This is important because when you don't know it is too easy to believe what you hear and so not give credit where credit is due. The chapters include The Church and Science and How the Monks Saved Civilization. If you have any pre-conceived ideas about those topics you'll have to put them aside and then you'll be glad you did. Great book.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
Influence of the Catholic Church Feb 14, 2010
A book of surprises, excellently written. Certain themes seem to be lacking, for example: the influence that the Church has had upon music in the West, the liberation of women up to the accepted voting rights of women of our day etc. It is for the general reader, but one has to pay close attention to the author's thought, especially in the sections about philosophy.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
What's Christian About Western Civilization? Dec 25, 2009
Historians have long acknowledged that Western civilization is a synthesis of three historical traditions: Judeo-Christianity, classical humanism, and certain Germanic traditions. These three historical streams merged during the so-called Middle Ages to produce what we call Western or European civilization. The glue that brought the other two together and makes Western civilization unique among the world's civilizations is the Judeo-Christian religious tradition.
The synthesis took place during the High Middle Ages in Europe and was largely the work of the Christian church. Monks carefully and faithfully preserved what survived of Classical civilization by copying the Greek and Roman manuscripts that survived the flames of the fallen Roman Empire. Thomas Cahill wrote of this glorious effort in his best-selling book, How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995).
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. expands the story further by going beyond the work of the monks in the medieval monasteries to call attention to the Christian roots of the universities, modern science, Western legal concepts, international law, modern economics, and much more. What Woods wants us to see is that a world without God -- that is, a world without the moral and ethical understanding rooted in Judeo-Christianity -- would mean the realization of the worst Darwinian nightmare, a world where the only law would be the law of the jungle, a world without mercy or charity.
I will make but one friendly suggestion concerning the book's title. I believe that a better title would be How the Christian [rather than just "Catholic"] Church Built Western Civilization, and I might be tempted to add as a subtitle And by Doing So, Civilized the World. I do not think Dr. Woods would disagree with my basic equation that Roman Catholic and Christian are synonymous, at least until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. Perhaps he wanted to remind both Roman Catholics and Protestants of the contributions made by individuals who were both Christians and members of the Roman Catholic Church in the formation of what we call Western civilization, or what some of us would prefer to refer to as the rise of civilization.
4 of 6 found the following review helpful:
Outstanding Aug 25, 2009
The facts this book shares are hardly that surprising for anyone who has kept even tangentially abreast of medieval studies. However, for the unlettered, the claims this book makes might be "surprising" or "new." That is why this book is so terribly important.
From the modern scientific method, to the industrial revolution, to the preservation of the ideas of antiquity during the Middle Ages, to great art and architecture, the Catholic Church truly was one of the main drivers in the development of Western Civilization. In my academic discipline, which is music, the Church's influence could not be escaped. Even if one studies music history with an anti-Catholic who bemoans the Council of Trent's effects on "innovation" in Catholic Church music, the CENTRAL role the Church played in nurturing, commissioning, and directing the development of western music can not be understated.
From Guido of Arezzo (the monk who invented the staff and gave us sol-fege) to Hildegard of Bingen, to Palestrina, the Catholic Church has given us some of the greatest musical masterpieces in history, and played a pivotal role in the development of Western Music itself.
As for art and architecture, the role is similar. The Church commissioned and inspired art and drove the Renaissance in Italy to incredible hights (even as it may of exacerbated the Reformation).
And as for science, the Church's contributions are unparalleled. Everyone likes to bring up Galilleo (the exception that proves the rule and an overstated case) but the reality is that the Church gave us the university system, and the precursors to modern scientific method.
It is important that we (whether we be protestant, Catholic, or secularist) understand WHERE OUR CIVILIZATION CAME FROM. A culture without roots is a culture doomed to fail. We must reclaim our identity as a Christian civilization known as Christendom.
Thank you Dr. Woods for an excellent book.
I also heartily recommend Dr. Woods' Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass for a look at how the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite can help renew and inspire authentic Catholic liturgical praxis.
And for those who like free-market economics (I do not count myself entirely among you... I am a distributist) I recommend Dr. Woods' Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse While I disagree with the premise of the book, Dr. Woods' has made an important contribution to the debate.
Dr. Woods is, for me, perhaps the most important scholar publishing popular work today. Almost anything he has written is excellent. While I disagree with some it, I think he always pursues high academic standards and helps drive discussion. His work is to be commended.
4 of 47 found the following review helpful:
 Keep up the good work! Aug 07, 2009
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. You can maintain the lie only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. - Joseph Goebbels
The author has confused the many Catholics who did the great works listed in the book with the Church of Rome. The greatest number of the intellectually elite who created Western civilization were Gnostics and Protestants in secret and Catholics in church. Perhaps the author's intent was to create a Catholic Church-centrist movement, which would have claims on history similar to the Afro-centrists.
Both sides of the story are moot. What is relevant is that controversy sells books where universal agreement does not. The unlearned sheep will never know the difference because they will never do their own meticulous research into the subject matter and come to their own conclusions.
You cannot argue with success. No doubt, the author is laughing all the way to the bank.
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