The Church and the Market is a vigorous and lively defense of the market economy and a withering attack on all forms of state intervention. It covers labor unions, monopoly, money and banking, business cycles, interest, usury, and much more. Although it makes a particular point of noting the moral arguments of the market economy and that Catholics are of course perfectly at liberty to support it, its audience is much broader than Catholics alone. Readers of all religious traditions and none at all have praised The Church and the Market, first-place winner in the 2006 Templeton Enterprise Awards, as one of the most compelling and persuasive defenses of capitalism against its critics ever written.

"The book is part an explanation of the Austrian point of view, which rejects evidenced-based economics that relies on natural experiments and is instead in favor of principles derived by reason and logic. . . .[Wood's] arguments offer a guide for Catholics who . . . reject Pope Francis’ condemnation of the global economic order." - Fortune Magazine