Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy

For a 500-page history of the papacy, this is pretty lively! I definitely learned a lot I hadn't known before, including about the long history of antipopes, the connection of the pope to the Holy Roman Empire, and how long it actually took for Italy to unify. But even though the writing isn't ponderous or dull, it still took me nearly two weeks to finish and occasionally felt like a slog.