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Newman's Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint

Hardback ISBN: 9781441150844 | Paperback ISBN: 9780745641461
Author(s): John Cornwell Publisher: Continuum

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

John Henry Newman was the most eminent English-speaking Christian thinker and writer of the past two hundred years. James Joyce hailed him the 'greatest' prose stylist of the Victorian age.

A problematic campaign to canonise Newman started fifty years ago. After many delays John Paul II declared him a 'Venerable'. Then Pope Benedict XVI, a keen student of Newman's works, pressed for his beatification. But was Newman a 'Saint'? In Newman's Unquiet Grave John Cornwell (author of A Thief in the Night and Hitler's Pope) tells the story of the chequered attempts to establish Newman's sanctity against the background of major developments within Catholicism. His life was marked by personal feuds, self-absorption, accusations of professional and artistic narcissism, hypochondria, and same-sex friendships that at times bordered on the apparent homo-erotic.

John Cornwell investigates the process of Newman's elevation to sainthood to present a highly original and controversial new portrait of the great man's life and genius for a new generation of religious and non-religious readers alike.

REVIEWS:
"Newman's Unquiet Grave is a substantial achievement...John Cornwell has taken on the task of writing a biography of Newman to make his life intelligible to the largely secular public which in a few weeks will watch on television the ceremony of his beatification. He has followed a via media between the hagiography of Meriol Trevor and the mockery of Lytton Strachey, and he has produced a Life which is readable, sympathetic and judicious... Altogether, he has succeeded in building up a vivid picture of Newman's personality." ...Anthony Kenny in The Times Literary Supplement, July 28, 2010

"A work of rare insight and careful balance of judgement...give[s] the reader a richer interpretation of Newman's extraordinary genius." ...Edward Norman in Standpoint, May 2010

"There are three qualities which mark this book out for special commendation. First, Cornwell sees Newman was first and foremost a writer ... Secondly, Cornwell is a practised journalist, and loves gossip and a good story ... Thirdly Cornwell, a thoughtful intellectual of our own day, explains the significance of Newman for today's church." ...A.N. Wilson in The Spectator, 5 June 2010

"richly informative...and splendidly readable" ...Terry Eagleton in London Review of Books, 5 August, 2010

"Newman's true qualities will shine through, this compelling biography concludes, and the world will be , on balance, better for it." ...Peter Standford in The Sunday Times,30 May, 2010

"Newman's Unquiet Grave by John Cornwell is a highly readable attempt to convey why Newman was, and remains, a fascinating figure." ...Charles Moore in The Daily Telegraph, 19 July, 2010

"Cornwell writes about Newman and his time with verve and lucidity ... Cornwell usefully highlights that Newman ... was part of the Roman tradition that saw the imagination as the means to understanding the sublime." ...Catherine Pepinster in The New Statesman, 14 May, 2010

"[An] Excellent biography ... [A] graceful and scholarly account of Newman's life." ...Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church, Oxford University in The Literary Review, 1 June, 2010

"This is a wonderfully realized study of a complex man, required reading for every student of English history and its rich Christian tradition." ...Publishers Weekly, Starred Reviews, 12 July, 2010

"a timely biography by John Cornwell. He admires Newman, but seeks to save him from hagiography and to remind us that he was a great and independent Christian thinker - one of the first, for instance, to accept the idea of evolution - and a master of English prose." ...David Lodge in The Guardian, 17 July, 2010

"John Cornwell's biography makes a case for [Newman's] continued relevance outside the religious sphere." ...The Financial Times, 19 July, 2010

"One particular strength of this book is the way Cornwell has quarried material from Newman's writings." ...The Tablet, 26 June, 2010
 

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The Pope in Winter: The Dark Face of Pope John Paul II's Papacy

Paperback ISBN: 9780141020716
Author(s): John Cornwell Publisher: Penguin

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The late John Paul II was portrayed by admirers as one of history's great popes. But in The Pope in Winter, leading Vatican expert John Cornwell seriously questions the workings of his papacy and points to fundamental flaws – exacerbated by age and infirmity – that have alarming consequences for both the Catholic Church's future and John Paul II's successor.

REVIEWS:
"Cornwell wrote the book that skewered the reputation of the wartime Pope, Pius XII, for vacillation and cowardice in the face of the Nazis – an exposé for which some Catholic loyalists still cannot forgive him and which caused an American nun to try to throttle him on live TV. And now he sets fair to saw John Paul II off at the knees as well. The loyalists and hagiographers are circling defensively around the old boy to protect him from the attack on his record, though they have been unable to undermine any charges of substance. John Paul II's supporters believe the Pope is almost devoid of human stain. Sometimes the pontiff, after a quarter of a century of infallibility, seems to think so too. This book shows that, like the rest of us, he is all too human." ...Stephen Bates The Guardian
 

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Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII

Paperback ISBN: 9780143114000
Author(s): John Cornwell Publisher: Penguin

BOOK DESCRIPTION:
The "explosive" (The New York Times) bestseller—now with a new introduction by the author!

When Hitler's Pope, the shocking story of Pope Pius XII that "redefined the history of the twentieth century" (The Washington Post) was originally published, it sparked a firestorm of controversy both inside and outside the Catholic Church. Now, award-winning journalist John Cornwell has revisited this seminal work of history with a new introduction that both answers his critics and reaffirms his overall thesis that Pius XII, now scheduled to be canonized by the Vatican, weakened the Catholic Church with his endorsement of Hitler—and sealed the fate of the Jews in Europe.

Read further background to this book and the controversy it caused on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_Pope

REVIEWS:
"First excerpted in the glitzy pages of Vanity Fair, and serialized in the Sunday Times of London, Cornwell's unrelieved attack on the wartime leader of the Roman Catholic Church has provoked heated headlines and sharp rejoinders in the European media. The book itself, just published by Viking Penguin, is a classic example of what happens when an ill-equipped journalist assumes the airs of sober scholarship." ...Kenneth L Woodward Newsweek/The Daily Beast
 

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Explanations: Styles of Explanation in Science

Paperback ISBN: 9780198607786
Author(s): John Cornwell Publisher: Oxford University Press

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Our lives, states of health, relationships, behavior, experiences of the natural world, and the technologies that shape our contemporary existence are subject to a superfluity of competing, multi-faceted and sometimes incompatible explanations. Widespread confusion about the nature of "explanation" and its scope and limits pervades popular exposition of the natural sciences, popular history and philosophy of science. This fascinating book explores the way explanations work, why they vary between disciplines, periods, and cultures, and whether they have any necessary boundaries. In other words, Explanations aims to achieve a better understanding of explanation, both within the sciences and the humanities. It features contributions from expert writers from a wide range of disciplines, including science, philosophy, mathematics, and social anthropology.