I have read this book and enjoyed it immensely. And I'll absolutely second previous remarks about the English-speaking historians' view of Catholic Church is distorted through the lens of Gibbon et al.
A colleague of mine, researching the Byzantine period, was reading the standard English works, and kept finding these writers spending a lot of time and energy refuting a "Cardinal Baronius". Turns out he wrote a history of the Church that aimed to refute the Protestant reading of Church history, and was widely reputed even by his enemies to have done a first-rate job of it.
Baronius, as far as we know, has never been translated into English--leaving a gaping hole in English historiography.
Interesting.
Very interesting comment (about Cardinal Baronius).
Anybody remember the Monty Python sketch where a parrot was shown as a newsreader in what was supposed to be an evening news program and announced that "No parrots were killed on the M-3 [referring to a highway in England] today." Unless history relates to us personally, I guess it tends to get lost.
That said, I want to read Woods' book. I think I'm going to freak out my local library by asking them to buy it. I could afford it myself, but I like to request them to buy conservative or Catholic books, since this is an overwhelmingly liberal university town and I believe realizing that there are conservatives here is a true learning experience for them.
[Venerable] Cesare Baronius
Cardinal, father of modern church history, born Sora, Naples, 1538; died Rome, Italy, 1607. He studied in Rome, became a follower of [St.] Philip Neri, and was ordained, 1564. Upon the foundation of the Oratory, 1575, he moved to Santa Maria in Vallicella, and in 1584 was entrusted with the revision of the Roman Martyrology. His great work, Annales Ecclesiastici, conceived by Philip as a reply to the attempt to Protestantize history in the Centuries of Magdeburg, was published in twelve volumes, 1588-1607. After the appearance of the 11th volume, containing a treatise on the Sicilian monarchy proving the papacy's claim to the suzerainty of Naples and Sicily as prior to that of Spain, the whole work was condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. Baronius became superior of the Oratory, 1593, cardinal, 1596, and was named librarian of the Vatican and charged with the Vatican Press, 1597. He received strong support as a candidate for the papacy in the conclaves of 1605. The Annals, largely a chronological table from the birth of Christ to 1198, is marked by diligent research and accuracy, but Baronius's limited knowledge of Latin and Greek, and his use of documents since proved apocryphal, led him occasionally into error. The work, however, is a rich source from which historians have constantly drawn. It was a complete reply to the Centuriators. The history of later periods has been added by other historians. G. Mansi edited the most convenient complete edition, Lucca, 1738-1759; the latest edition (Bar-le-Duc, 1864-1875; continued, Paris, 1876-1883) is incomplete.
Baronius Press, a book publisher based in England, is named after him. They produce several editions of the traditional Douay-Rheims Bible, a Latin Mass Missal, and a travel-sized New Testament with the Psalms.