Ludwig von Pastor’s 16-volume History of the Popes is a monumental scholarly achievement, and like so many monumental scholarly achievements, nobody reads it anymore. Part of the reason may be that so few Catholics are aware of Pastor’s work. It’s not something you are going to find browsing an Ignatius Press or TAN Books catalog. But thanks to advances in on-demand printing and the good efforts of my friend Eliot Milco (author of learned and intellectually quirky web-log The Paraphasic), Pastor’s magnum opus is becoming available once again.
Milco has posted some brief information on the project here and you can peruse the available volumes here. Anyone seriously interested in Catholic history cannot afford to ignore these books and the wealth of information they contain. Also, every volume purchased puts a bit of money in Milco’s pockets, which means he won’t have to go back to teaching at a heterodox Jesuit high school for a living.
