How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

by Thomas E. Woods Jr., Cardinal Antonio Cañizares (Introduction)

Overview

Ask someone today where Western Civilization originated, and he or she might say Greece or Rome. But what is the ultimate source of Western Civilization? Bestselling author and professor Thomas E. Woods, Jr. provides the long neglected answer: the Catholic Church. In the new paperback edition of his critically-acclaimed book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Woods goes far beyond the familiar tale of monks copying manuscripts and preserving the wisdom of classical antiquity. Gifts such as modern science, free-market economics, art, music, and the idea of human rights come from the Catholic Church, explains Woods. 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

ISBN-13:	9781596983281
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	09/18/2012
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	78,343
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Thomas E. Woods Jr. is the New York Times bestselling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, among other books. He holds a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard and a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. A recipient of the Templeton Enterprise Award and the O. P. Alford III Prize for Libertarian Scholarship, he is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Table of Contents

Foreword xiii

Chapter 1 The Indispensable Church 1

Chapter 2 A Light in the Darkness 9

Chapter 3 How the Monks Saved Civilization 25

Chapter 4 The Church and the University 47

Chapter 5 The Church and Science 67

Chapter 6 Art, Architecture, and the Church 115

Chapter 7 The Origins of International Law 135

Chapter 8 The Church and Economics 155

Chapter 9 How Catholic Charity Changed the World 171

Chapter 10 The Church and Western Law 189

Chapter 11 The Church and Western Morality 205

Conclusion A World Without God 219

Acknowledgments 229

Bibliography 231

Notes 243

Index 269

About the Author 283

Editorial Reviews

Dr. Thomas E. Woods Jr., the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, has written a fascinating book on the major, far-reaching contributions that the Catholic Church has made to Western civilization; The topics covered include science and technology; economics and finance; education and the arts.

The author attempts to dispel the stereotype of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages as being an institution of “corruption, ignorance, repression, and stagnation.” His examples include the Church’s involvement in the preservation of literature, the support of art and architecture, the revival of codified law, the advancement of science, and the invention of charity. Barrett Whitener uses subtle inflection and frequent variation in his intonation to keep the listener engaged with the stodgy rhetoric; his pauses and changes of tone make the author’s punctuation easy to discern. Whitener reads without haste, and his deep voice further adds to the pleasure of learning how popular prejudice has deceived us by ignoring the facts. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

FEB/MAR 06 - AudioFile