- Published: 15 March 2018
- ISBN: 9780099587545
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 640
- RRP: $24.99
The Catholics
The Church and its People in Britain and Ireland, from the Reformation to the Present Day














- Published: 15 March 2018
- ISBN: 9780099587545
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 640
- RRP: $24.99
[Roy Hattersley] is very good: Catholics is a great read and spectacularly well-researched…. British Politics, especially the shipwrecked Labour Party, could do with a generation of Hattersleys – tough, committed, smart and cultivated.
Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times
[An] elegantly written, sweeping account of Catholics in these islands from the Reformation to the present day. It’s a tale of high drama and high stakes, by turns horrifying, romantic and ultimately hopeful.
Peter Stanford, Observer
big-hearted, fair-minded, insightful...a joy to read
Frank Cottrell-Boyce, New Statesman
Enjoyable… Perfectly solid, sensible and often astute.
Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times
Hattersley narrates… with his characteristic energy… His talent for invective remains strong.
Gerard Degroot, Times
Hattersley offers a scholarly chronicle of heroism and holiness in post-Reformation Britain, when the age of Catholic saints and miracles was seen to survive against the odds.
Ian Thomson, Financial Times
Thoroughly entertaining… I heartily recommend this volume, which is written with great brio, intelligence and charm; and with a wistful distance from his subjects’ faith which I found very appealing.
A.N. Wilson, Catholic Herald
Hattersley… excels in describing political machinations… One must admire his courage, not to say his chutzpah, in undertaking a book of such enormous scope.
Michael Walsh, Tablet
Thoughtful and thought provoking, minutely researched and well-written
Choice
The author writes with authority... He engages with his material and shares his enthusiasm with the reader. But equally he is detached: he has no interest in covering up scandals or selling a party line. The engaged outsider becomes a compelling biographer, at once intrigued and underwhelmed by his subject-matter
Lavinia Byrne, Church Times
Sympathetic and lucid.
Daily Telegraph