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Summary: The posthumous edition of Amintore Fanfani's seminal study
Review: Catholicism, Protestantism, And Capitalism by the late Amintore Fanfani (1908-1999), is an impressively comprehensive and scholarly presentation between traditional Catholic doctrine and the spirit of economic capitalism. This posthumous edition of Amintore Fanfani's seminal and ground breaking study is enhanced for contemporary readers by an informed and informative foreword by Charles M.A. Clark (Professor of Economics, Tobin College of Business, and Senior Fellow, Vincentian Center for Church and Society at St. John's University, New York) and Giorgio Campanini (Professor of the History of Political Thought, University of Parma, Italy). Catholicism, Protestantism, And Capitalism is an uncomplicated read and especially commended to the attention the those of the Christian community with an interest in economics and theology.
Rating:
Summary: Deeply Penetrating
Review: For anyone who is interested in why our culture has produced the Enron's, WorldCom's and the like; or why increasingly our society is becoming one big hommage to corporate giants, have a look at this classic work of Catholic economic history. The kind of economy existing up until the Protestant Reformation placed the economy at the service of persons, families and local communities. Today, it is the economy that is the lord of us all. We are "consumers" and "human resources." For anyone who hopes and dreams of a better way, this classic work of scholarship will give you the threads to understanding how we got to where we are and provide glimmers of what we must do to recover a person centered economy.
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Summary: Fanfani: Historian, Statesman and Man of Faith
Review: In this early work (originally published in 1935), Amintore Fanfani, then a professor of Economic History at the Catholic University of Milan (Italy), demolished the standard sociological view of Capitalism: the thesis (due to Weber) that Capitalism was held back by the Catholic Faith until Protestant Reformers set it free.
In this review, I will not discuss the theoretical arguments, but instead focus on the way Fanfani practiced his economical theories, with great success. Fanfani was one of the leaders of the Christian Democrats (DC), the Catholic party that ran Italy continuously for about 45 years after WWII. During this period, the economy of Italy grew at an incredible rate, eventually reaching a GNP comparable to (if not higher than) the one of formerly much more advanced (Protestant) countries, like England.
Fanfani was the DC party leader for much of this period. And he was a minister or the head of the government in many of the multiple DC-led governments that ran Italy during the time. (The other great DC leader, Aldo Moro was rewarded for his service to Italy by being murdered by Communist terrorists, the Red Brigades.)
The economic success of those governments is a matter of historical record. But, in part because of his strong faith, Fanfani was much hated in Italy (he was actually more appreciated abroad). I remember myself, as a younger, stupider person, disparaging this man, of whose intellectual accomplishments I only recently became aware.
Rating: 
Summary: UTTERLY MUDDLED..
Review: This book never comes to a solid conclusion about anything; it winds up with a paragraph hypothesizing about nations' economic systems and a possible relation to the size of people's heads. I joke not. It's that bad. No, no, no!
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