In the first chapter, Mansfield explores the childhood and early adulthood of Ratzinger, growing up in Bavaria in the midst of the second world war country. Ratzinger's family mostly tried to stay out of conflicts military and political as much as possible. Ratzinger himself was criticised for having been a Youth, but Mansfield and other commentators point out that this affiliation was a mandatory aspect of life in Germany at the time, and that Ratzinger, while not a martyr or activist, was not a supporter or enthusiastic participant, either. Mansfield gives a bit of history of the kind of Catholicism that shaped Ratzinger and his family in Bavaria; this is one of the more staunchly Roman Catholic areas of Europe, and has been for centuries, and this kind of communal shaping would have significant effects later.

In the second chapter, Mansfield explores Ratzinger's affinity with Augustine, the early great intellectual of the western Christian tradition, whose works such as the Confessions and City of God continue to have profound influence in circles Catholic and Protestant to this day. Aquinas was not as strong a figure for Ratzinger as was Augustine, and Mansfield shows some of the ways in which these figures battle for primacy within Ratzinger's thought, but Mansfield sometimes slips into simplistic analysis ('Augustine thought in exclusively biblical categories, while Aquinas thought in inclusive philosophical categories', Mansfield writes, but neither idea is as generally true as this statement makes them sound).

Mansfield devotes a good amount of space to Ratzinger's work with Pope John Paul II, and the legacy that is left in the wake of such a long and eventful pontificate. Mansfield also looks specifically at Ratzinger's time in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the place from which Ratzinger's infamy as God's Pit-Bull and the Vatican Enforcer arise.

Mansfield does draw in a lot of material. In one part, he explores the different interpretations that could be applied to Pope Benedict XVI vis-à-vis the prophecy of St. Malachy; in another, he gives a listing of passages and quotes from Ratzinger's own writings and speeches (as well as a few that have come after his succession to the papacy). Mansfield is fairly balanced, very accessible, and interesting to read. A bit more depth in various points would be appreciated, but as a general interest, quick-history text, it succeeds on several levels.