New book gives interesting historical account of Catholic influence on our country's founding

NEWS PROVIDED BY
Carmel Communications
Sept. 15, 2020

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 15, 2020 /Christian Newswire/ -- Marrying the study of America's early history and founding with the influence of Catholics in the same time period is at the heart of the new book by the late Kevin Starr, CONTINENTAL ACHIEVEMENT: ROMAN CATHOLICS IN THE UNITED STATES – REVOLUTION AND THE EARLY REPUBLIC.

Starr received a B.A. from the University of San Francisco, an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and a Master of Library Science from U.C. Berkeley. He served as the City Librarian of San Francisco and the State Librarian of California. Starr also was a university professor and a professor of history at the University of Southern California. Starr passed away at age 76 on January 14, 2017.

CONTINENTAL ACHIEVEMENT follows Starr's Continental Ambitions: Roman Catholics in North America, and focuses on the participation of Catholics, alongside their Protestant and Jewish fellow citizens, in the Revolutionary War and the creation and development of the Republic.

With his characteristic honesty and rigorous research, Starr gives readers an enduring history of Catholics in the early years of the United States. John Carroll makes frequent appearances in roles of increasing importance: missionary, constitution writer for his ex-Jesuit colleagues, prefect apostolic, controversialist and defender of the faith, bishop, founder of Georgetown, Cathedral developer, archbishop and metropolitan, and negotiator with the Court of Rome. In him, the Maryland ethos regarding Roman Catholicism reached a point of penultimate fulfillment.

"Kevin Starr's CONTINENTAL ACHIEVEMENT is itself a glorious achievement," said John T. McGreevy, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre Dame. "Starr's narrative turns the early years of Catholicism in the United States into a riveting story of rivalry, piety and ambition. It is a superb introduction to how a global religion made itself in a deeply Protestant republic. It will also stand as an appropriate valedictory for one of our era's most gifted historians."

For more information, to request a media review copy or to schedule an interview with Sheila Starr, the widow of Kevin Starr, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com) of Carmel Communications.

SOURCE Carmel Communications

CONTACT: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276, KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com