emi- nent clerics, art historians, and jour- nalists, the book surveys the city-state's history and organization.
The volume does have one real flaw: Bearing the Vatican's own im- primatur, it is, not surprisingly, short on analysis and self-criticism. A good antidote is Peter Nichols's The Poli- tics of the Vatican (Praeger, 1968).
Nichols, a British journalist long based in Rome, provides memorable sketches of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. When John (born Angelo Roncalli) worried at night about...