A review by berenikeasteria
The Popes: A History by John Julius Norwich

3.0

Well, the book definitely is somewhat of a slog to get through, and that’s even after the author has admitted that he has omitted and simplified events. A comprehensive history of the papacy over two millennia is just so dense and complex that you could hardly expect it to be otherwise. As a result I often found myself picking this up episodically – just a chapter at a time, and then putting it down again. It wasn’t immensely readable or a page-turner, so to speak. I admit I skimmed over the modern times section at the end, since I picked the book up for a historical portrait. But, the book does a good job of presenting the bigger picture and pulling together a great many disparate strands and explaining how, when, and why they fit together. It’s a good book for grounding European history, as a primer to a more specialised focus. I would recommend picking up the appropriate chapter, reading it, and then moving on to more particular concerns, so from that point of view it works well as a reference book.

6 out of 10