RaveChurch Times (UK)With the precise observation of a historian and the skill of a literary writer, Christopher Clark reveals a world of rising rationalism and growing state control of the Church, but also of many other currents of 19th-century Europe ... Clark skilfully interweaves his findings in the Secret State Archive with painting a picture of the political, theological, and social landscape of the time ... Like much good historical observation, it becomes a parable about some of the currents of our own time, not least the potential origins and the power of what we might now call fake news.
