Book excerpt: The two volume authoritative guide to the social teaching of the Catholic Church. This first volume covers the period from Genesis to Centesimus Annus - Biblical times to the late nineteenth century. There has been a social teaching in the Judaeo-Christian tradition from the beginning, and it has continued to develop in the Christian tradition through the social witness and teaching of the Church through to the present time. Here is the Christian experience from Apostolic times, through the witness of the early Church Fathers and then Christendom in the Middle Ages, and the periods of absolutisms, imperialisms and revolutions in the early modern and modern world down to the end of the nineteenth century. Rodger Charles, S.J. has been researching, lecturing and writing in London, Oxford and San Francisco for over forty years.