Snow says: A historian's job is to present an accurate or as unbiased portrait of the past as is possible. They have an obligation to include the right things and possibly exclude the wrong things so as to present as true a version as can be. You argue that Wood's role of as a historian precludes him from speculating but despite arguing that he is a historian, you attribute to him no responsibility to present a full or complete or accurate or balanced account of the past.
Two comments. First, your expectations of historians in general is accurate. If I were preparing a Masters or Doctoral thesis, I would certainly need to offer some material that is positive, negative and nuetral, preferably from primary sources. I would then synthesize the findings, and offer my take on the most valid conclusions. However, all this assumes I am writing an academic work for an academic audience, from an aggressively objective stance. So, my second comment is that Woods is doing no such thing. He is playing a second role historians sometimes take on--that of popularizer. He digests the historical materials, and offers them already prepared for us. Furthermore, as the title suggests, he makes no pretensions about being objective. He believes historians up to now have not been, and he is offering a corrective: a polemic work that intentionally puts the best Catholic foot forward.
He may be a historian by training but this is not the best kind of history. This is pure apologetics.
Yes it is. However, Woods is upfront about it. A 200-ish page book is not a comprehensive history. This is an over polemic. Again, he's presenting what amounts to a rebuttal of the anti-religious, anti-Catholic fare that has generally been available on the subject to date.
Let me rephase my criticism: Woods covers all the best that he can attribute to the Catholic Church but completely ignores the ways in which the Church repressed or hindered progress that might otherwise have been made if not for the Church's ubiquitous influence. It seems natural that so much that flowed out of the middle ages would be stamped with the Church's influence since there is little that the Church did not control or sway or influence. And, some of the best and brightest were absorded into the clergy and monastic life. In a way that might have been helpful because where else could they get a paid gig studing the stars but on the other hand, it was quite a drain on the gene pool.
Still - none of my criticism is to down play the contributions I have now learned about.
I guess this all goes back to whether Christianity, and specifically the Catholic Church, have been an overall positive, nuetral, or negative. And theologically, this may come down to whether you believe Christianity has been apostate sense the early post-apostolic age or not. 