Trent and All That

There is no other comparable book or even article that deals with the same material in such a full and historically accurate way. O'Malley is the first to put a vast amount of scholarship together in a clear, cogent, and authoritative fashion. He has the kind of profound knowledge and understanding of historiography that comes only after years of study. Given the scope of the book, it should be most useful for courses not only on the Reformation, but on early modern Europe in general. His conclusion is a major contribution to the debate about terminology, and it opens a different way of conceiving of the whole history of Catholicism between the Reformation and the French Revolution. -- Elisabeth G. Gleason, Professor of History Emerita, University of San Francisco Trent and All That is punchy, concise, entertaining, and lucid. In fact, these five short chapters constitute the single best overview of scholarship on Catholicism in early modern Europe during the past fifty years. There is frankly nothing of the kind in English. I imagine this will be a most welcome guide. -- Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Professor of History, New York University

John W. O’Malley works out a remarkable guide to the intellectual and historical developments behind the concepts of Catholic reform, the Counter Reformation, and, in his felicitous term, Early Modern Catholicism. The result is the single best overview of scholarship on Catholicism in early modern Europe, delivered in a pithy, entertaining style.

Counter Reformation, Catholic Reformation, the Baroque Age, the Tridentine Age, the Confessional Age: why does Catholicism in the early modern era go by so many names? And what political situations, what religious and cultural prejudices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave rise to this confusion? Taking up these questions, John W. O’Malley works out a remarkable guide to the intellectual and historical developments behind the concepts of Catholic reform, the Counter Reformation, and, in his felicitous term, Early Modern Catholicism. The result is the single best overview of scholarship on Catholicism in early modern Europe, delivered in a pithy, lucid, and entertaining style. Although its subject is fundamental to virtually all other issues relating to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, there is no other book like this in any language.

More than a historiographical review, Trent and All That makes a compelling case for subsuming the present confusion of terminology under the concept of Early Modern Catholicism. The term indicates clearly what this book so eloquently demonstrates: that Early Modern Catholicism was an aspect of early modern history, which it strongly influenced and by which it was itself in large measure determined. As a reviewer commented, O’Malley’s discussion of terminology ‘opens up a different way of conceiving of the whole history of Catholicism between the Reformation and the French Revolution.”