Thomas F. Madden, Venice, a New History. Viking Adult, 2012.

This book is very nicely written and is counted to be quickly swallowed. Yet, it is a piece of Catholic propaganda. I.e. events, which are usually presented as manifestations of power struggles, palace coups, greed, bigotry and territorial rapacity are instead explained by Catholic piety and Christian endurance is the face of the infidels. Ugliness, such as Inquisition, extradition of Giordano Bruno to Rome, assassination attempts on Paolo Sarpi and ghettoization of the Jews are either omitted or glossed over. Thomas Madden stoops to accuse historians imputing economic motives in Venetian subversion of the crusade to attack Constantinople as rank Marxists, yet in other places he himself is not above assuming economic drives of politics. On the whole, it is revisionist history, insidious because it is written so well.