Has anyone read Michael Burleigh's works? In particular his two volumes series? The first volume is entitled Earthly Powers while the sequel is entitled Sacred Causes.

I came across this description of the second book and am curious about how readable Burleigh is.

"The latter volume, Sacred Causes, is particularly helpful in appraising the role of the Catholic Church. As John Jay Hughes notes (National Review):


In July 1933 the Vatican, always more comfortable with dictatorships than with democracies, helped Hitler consolidate his power by throwing overboard the Catholic Center party, which had defended the rights of German Catholics since 1870, in order to conclude a Concordat with Nazi Germany, thus becoming the first international power to recognize Germany’s new Führer. In Italy the Church welcomed Mussolini’s racial laws. The Church’s centuries old anti-Judaism furnished justification and encouragement for Nazi anti-Semitism, which culminated in the Holocaust. Welcoming Hitler’s crusade against Soviet Communism, the wartime pope, Pius XII, remained silent in the face of Hitler’s Final Solution, thus meriting the title of “Hitler’s Pope,” the man co-responsible for the death of six million Jews. … Michael Burleigh shows what serious students of twentieth century history have long known: every one of these widely believed assertions is false."

quote taken from The American Catholic here:
http://the-american-catholic.com/200...hael-burleigh/