3 Review(s)

Co-written by a Roman Catholic priest and a Protestant minister, this balanced, richly illustrated history of the Christian religion traces the two-thousand-year development of the world's largest organized religion, from its Old Testament roots to the present day. 25,000 first printing.The Story of Christianity, a sumptuously produced pictorial history that begins with Abraham and moves forward to Billy Graham, is a spectacular feat in all respects. In less than 250 pages, authors Michael Collins and Matthew A. Price convey a credible and near-comprehensive sense of this tremendously complex religion. The text is sophisticated yet accessible because the book wisely balances intellectual and everyday concerns (summarizing the key points of Thomas Aquinas, for instance, and later describing "Faith and Daily Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries"). The best thing about The Story of Christianity, however, is the variety and quality of colorful images (Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, a Christian procession in Papua New Guinea) that it will leave lodged, probably permanently, in your mind. --Michael Joseph Gross