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Thomas E. Woods
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How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization Paperback – Illustrated, September 18, 2012

by Thomas E. Woods (Author), Antonio Canizares (Introduction)
4.8 out of 5 stars 752
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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.
    Previous page
    1. Print length
      280 pages
    2. Language
      English
    3. Publisher
      Regnery History
    4. Publication date
      September 18, 2012
    5. Dimensions
      6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
    6. ISBN-10
      1596983280
    7. ISBN-13
      978-1596983281
    8. See all details
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    Editorial Reviews

    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.

    Product details

    • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Regnery History; Reprint edition (September 18, 2012)
    • Language ‏ : ‎ English
    • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
    • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1596983280
    • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1596983281
    • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.1 ounces
    • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.9 x 9 inches
    • Customer Reviews:
      4.8 out of 5 stars 752

    About the author

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    Thomas E. Woods

    Thomas E. Woods

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    Thomas E. Woods, Jr., was educated at Harvard and Columbia University (where he received his PhD), and was honored with the Hayek Lifetime Achievement Award in Vienna in 2019. Woods is the New York Times bestselling author of 13 books, which in turn have been translated into over a dozen languages, and his book The Church and the Market won the first prize in the Templeton Enterprise Awards.

    Woods has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, FOX News, FOX Business, C-SPAN, and other outlets, produced his own program for EWTN, and he is the host of The Tom Woods Show. He was a creator of the self-taught, K-12 Ron Paul homeschool curriculum. He lives in central Florida with his wife and five daughters.

    Customer reviews

    4.8 out of 5 stars
    4.8 out of 5
    752 global ratings

    Top reviews from the United States

    B. Gross
    5.0 out of 5 stars Well worth a read whether you are a believer or not.
    Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    A very informative book that gives example upon example of how the Catholic Church developed Western Civilization. I learned many new things. The Church was not opposed to science. It was concerned about Man displacing God (and it appears those concerns where well-founded IMO). The parts on architecture, the university and art were very interesting. It does come across that the author is trying to counter the usual arguments about how the Church was oppressive and not open to progress. I believed he succeeded in this task.
    4 people found this helpful
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    Kristian M. Abrahamsen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Al very interesting and relevant book
    Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    We should all know our heritage and know how our culture and civilization has developed.
    This books shows how the Catholic Church has shaped and develop our western civilization.
    There are a lot of things we now take for granted which we can thank the Catholic Church for. The book is good at making us better understand our culture.
    One person found this helpful
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    Lovee
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Source of Long Forgotten History
    Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    I gave this book five stars, because it was very well written and true. From my studies abroad I have seen the beauty that has been forgotten. We need to remember! Read this book!
    One person found this helpful
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    Stephen Hitchings
    4.0 out of 5 stars Just what the title says
    Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    How ironic that the media these days are always charging the Catholic Church with being irrational and anti-scientific - even with being the enemy of reason. How ironic that the majority of these criticisms seem to emanate from university science departments. Ironic because the Catholic Church alone was responsible not only for the creation of universities - and the tradition of rational discussion which is, or should be, the hallmark of university education - but for the origins of modern science itself.

    Scientific discoveries and technological developments occurred in many different cultures and many parts of the world, but experimental science, as we know the term today, only arose once: in Christian Europe.

    Using the findings of other scholars, particularly Stanley Jaki, Woods demonstrates how the Christian concept of the universe as the product of a loving and reasonable God led logically to the conclusion that all creation must operate by consistent laws which could be discovered by human reason. And equally importantly, he explains why other cultures, which believed either in fallible and even vengeful gods or in a sentient universe, could not come to this conclusion.

    This book is deliberately popular in style, however unpopular its message may be in some quarters. It is not deep, and would probably be of little use for scholars except as an introduction, but what it lacks in depth, it more than makes up for in breadth and readability. It is an impressively thorough survey of the enormous influence of the Church on virtually every aspect of western civilization: the development of hospitals and medical care, legal systems, economic theory, and so much more.

    In particular, Woods documents the role of the much-maligned monks in keeping civilization alive through the so-called "Dark Ages" by feeding the poor, by caring for them, by developing technology, by promoting agriculture of all kinds, and particularly by devoting themselves to the preservation of the literature of antiquity from the barbarian tribes that were intent on burning everything they did not understand.

    The writing is unhesitatingly polemical, but this is okay; in fact, it is long overdue. So many people, particularly people in the media and in educational institutions, are ignorant about the matters he discusses. So many of us have been fed lies all our lives.

    This is a wonderful book. I would love to give it 5 stars.

    Unfortunately I can't.

    The writing is very uneven - sometimes inspired, but all too often sloppy. Woods often overstates his case, and he repeats himself far too often. He develops some topics in too much detail and leaves others with gaping holes - eg after a fascinating section on the development of international law by the Spanish Dominicans, he really says nothing about the historical impact of their ideas.

    I repeat: this is a great book, and I think everyone should read it. But it could have been so much better.
    22 people found this helpful
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    Tom Ridenour
    5.0 out of 5 stars an essential work for any one who would understand the West
    Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2008
    Verified Purchase
    Dr. Woods has written a book that has long been needed: one that tells the truth about the Church and the development of western culture over and against the lies, distortions and misrepresentations of to-day's anti-Catholic, anti-God visual and print media--not to mention the rabid hatred of the Church in much of academia.
    The chapter on the Church and science will be particularly enlightening to those who have accepted, carte blanch, the often repeated modern mantra about the Church being anti-science--always using a distorted version of the Galileo controversy as the ONE example in 2000 years to "prove" the Churches' scientific backwardness and authoritarian posturing: nothing could be further from the truth. Such a view is not only wrong; it is the opposite of wrong.
    Those anti-Catholics, both Protestant and secular, who dare to come to terms with the historical content and insights in Dr. Woods' book will find themselves with a new understanding and appreciation of the true roots and foundations of the moral, relational, scientific and metaphysical concepts they have previously taken for granted.
    How many converts will the book influence? It's hard to say. But those who read it with even a remote sense of fair-mindedness are likely to lose much of the Catholic animus they may have previously harbored--and that, in itself, is a good thing.
    Dr. Woods' book also has a virtue that Catholic homilists are encouraged to develop: transparency. It is very easy to understand. Difficult concepts and ideas are explained with a simplicity and clarity even a Fulton J. Sheen would have admired.
    The text is extremely lucid and enjoyable to read.
    An outstanding introduction to a great diversity of ideas and disciplines, Dr. Woods shows that virtually every thing we have and value in the West, with the possible exception of peanut butter, finds its origin in the past and its sustaining bulwark in the present in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,.
    15 people found this helpful
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    Top reviews from other countries

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    Alejandro Teran C
    5.0 out of 5 stars Una gran lectura!
    Reviewed in Mexico on April 20, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Un libro bien documentado que permite conocer la auténtica contribución de la Iglesia a la civilización en muchos órdenes, incluso en los que más se le denigra, como son la ciencia, la tecnología (y la promoción del progreso)
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    Romain
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    Reviewed in France on December 23, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Excellent. Dans ces temps de mensonge permanent, la vérité est nécessaire.
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    Silas Alves
    5.0 out of 5 stars Livro sensacional.
    Reviewed in Brazil on July 10, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    Tom Woods derruba todos os mitos construídos e enraizados na modernidade sobre a Igreja com autores agnósticos, ateus e inclusive anti-católicos. O livro é ótimo, assim como o índice para futuras leituras.
    3 people found this helpful
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    Gildas
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 11, 2020
    Verified Purchase
    A must for all who want to find out where Western Civilisation came from.
    One person found this helpful
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    Monocled Libertarian
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great book. It rekindled my appreciation for the Catholic ...
    Reviewed in Canada on January 11, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Great book. It rekindled my appreciation for the Catholic Church's role in developing Western civilization. One thing done well is it obliterates the notion once and for all the Church was 'reactionary' and 'anti-science'. It was the exact opposite. They preserved and encouraged the West's scientific heritage. Ironically, where the Church demanded PROOF for whatever theories were posited, today it seems to just accept the narrative on issues like "climate change" however flimsy (or manipulated) the science and data to support it has become. It has forgotten what it taught the West: Be skeptical and demand proof.
    4 people found this helpful
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