Written by one of the foremost historians of Pius XII, this present biographical study-unlike the greater part of the vast and growing historiography of Pope Pius XII-is a balanced and nonreactive account of his life and times. Its focus is not on the pope's silence during the Holocaust, though it does address the issue in a historical and objective framework. This is a biography of the man before and during his papacy. It probes the roots of his traditionalism and legalism, his approach to modernity and reformism in Church and society, and the influences behind his policies and actions

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