D. Kertzer: Yes, it is true that the last segment of the book takes on a less detached tone, although I tried to avoid moralizing language and let the evidence speak for itself. In fact, I originally planned to have the book end in 1922, when Achille Ratti ascends to the papal throne as Pius XI. There were two reasons for this. First, the Vatican archives beginning in 1922 are closed to researchers, and so the original archival material that lay behind the rest of the book could not be used for any time after 1922.

Second, so much has been written about the 1930s and the war years, I thought my major contribution would be to focus on the earlier years which lay the groundwork for what would come later. However, partly because I was writing a book intended for a broad audience, who would want to be able to make the link between the earlier period and the dark years beginning in 1939, and partly because in responding to the Vatican report of 1998 I had found material for those years that further undermined its conclusions, I decided to briefly look at the 1922-1939 period. I realize now that in doing so I was stepping into a hornet's nest.

R. Wilde: Some commentators have criticised Unholy War for presenting a distorted view of anti-Semitism and its modern growth by omitting information on other, non-Vatican, causes. I felt this was unfair, for I interpreted your book as doing simply what the subtitle claimed: presenting the role of the Papacy, during a period many studies have ignored. As such, Unholy War was never meant to be the defining volume on anti-Semitism, simply an - in reality invaluable - contribution to the broader debate, and a direct response to the Vatican Commission's report. Have I missed your point here, and what have you said to your critics?

D. Kertzer: I am glad you see things this way, as I feel exactly as you do. My book is on the role played by the Vatican in promulgating modern anti-Semitism. I clearly say in the book that anti-Semitism had a variety of sources. These include various branches of Protestantism, and various secular ideologies both of the left and the right. Certainly each of these other sources of anti-Semitism is well worth study. But none of this takes anything away from the concerted efforts of the Vatican to demonize the Jews.

R. Wilde: As a very focused volume, Unholy War does require of its readers a certain background in both religious and European affairs during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (or at least, your book will make people want to go and read more on these subjects). What books would you recommended to any of our readers?

D. Kertzer: Probably the best history of the popes in English is Owen Chadwick's A History of the Popes, 1830-1914 (Oxford, 1998). Lucy Riall recently published a good short history of Italian unification, The Italian Risorgimento (Oxford, 1994). For a lively and comprehensive, although opinionated, history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, readers might enjoy Eric Hobsbawm's two volumes. For Italian history the various works of Denis Mack Smith are both accessible to general readers and written by a major scholar in the field.

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For Citation And Footnotes
Title: Unholy War: An Interview with David Kertzer
Author: Robert Wilde
Date: 2002