How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization
The History the Textbooks Leave Out

Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

In the view of most people -- who are only repeating what they've been taught -- the Church's legacy to the West is one of ignorance and repression, and what makes the West great has developed very much in spite of the Church. Dr. Woods refutes this and argues instead that the Church has been the source of practically every fruitful and admirable quality of Western civilization, from the university and the sciences to charitable work and the arts.

About the speaker:
Thomas E. Woods, Jr., holds a bachelor's degree in history from Harvard and his master's, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. His books include the New York Times bestseller The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, The Church and the Market, and The Church Confronts Modernity. He is also the editor of The Political Writings of Rufus Choate and of a 2003 edition of Orestes Brownson's 1875 classic The American Republic.

Dr. Woods's writing has appeared in dozens of popular and scholarly periodicals, including the Christian Science Monitor, Investor's Business Daily, Modern Age, American Studies, Catholic Social Science Review, Journal of Markets & Morality, New Oxford Review, Catholic World Report, This Rock, The Freeman, Independent Review, Religion & Liberty, AD2000 (Australia), Christian Order (U.K.), Crisis, and Human Rights Review. A contributor to five encyclopedias, Dr. Woods is also a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute and an associated scholar of the Abbeville Institute. In addition, he is co-editor of a projected 11-volume encyclopedia of American history to be released late this year.

Dr. Woods was the recipient of the 2004 O.P. Alford III Prize for Libertarian Scholarship and of an Olive W. Garvey Fellowship from the Independent Institute in 2003. He has also been awarded two Humane Studies Fellowships and a Claude R. Lambe Fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University and a Richard M. Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Dr. Woods has appeared on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Fox & Friends, and The Big Story with John Gibson, as well as on MSNBC's Scarborough Country and C-Span2's Book TV. He has been a guest on over 150 radio programs, including Fox News Live with Alan Colmes, the G. Gordon Liddy Show, The Buzz Cut, Battle Line with Alan Nathan, and the Joey Reynolds Show. Published interviews with Dr. Woods have appeared in the Washington Times, the Pittsburgh Tribune, California Literary Review, Human Events, Our Sunday Visitor, and the Washington Post's Live Online.

Dr. Woods' next book, on American history, will be published by Random House later this year. He lives on Long Island with his wife and two daughters.