Decentralization, Absolutism, And The Papal States – Book Review

By Ryan McMaken*

Historian David Kertzer made a name for himself with his 1997 book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. The book covers the until-then-rarely-mentioned case of an Italian Jewish boy who was illicitly baptized by the housekeeper, and then kidnapped in 1858 by Papal State authorities on the grounds that Jews in...