God's Jury - The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World

Established by the Catholic Church in 1231, the Inquisition continued in one form or another for almost seven hundred years. Though associated with the persecution of heretics and Jews and with burning at the stake its targets were more numerous and its techniques more ambitious. The Inquisition pioneered surveillance, censorship, and scientific interrogation. As time went on, its methods and mindset spread far beyond the Church to become tools of secular persecution. Traveling from freshly opened Vatican archives to the detention camps of Guantanamo to the filing cabinets of the Third Reich, the acclaimed writer Cullen Murphy traces the Inquisition and its legacy, showing that not only did its offices survive into the twentieth century, but in the modern world its spirit is more influential than ever.

About the author

Cullen Murphy is the editor at large at Vanity Fair and the former managing editor of the Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of Are We Rome?, The Word According to Eve, and the essay collection Just Curious.

Summary

Established by the Catholic Church in 1231, the Inquisition continued in one form or another for almost seven hundred years. Though associated with the persecution of heretics and Jews — and with burning at the stake — its targets were more numerous and its techniques more ambitious. The Inquisition pioneered surveillance, censorship, and “scientific” interrogation. As time went on, its methods and mindset spread far beyond the Church to become tools of secular persecution. Traveling from freshly opened Vatican archives to the detention camps of Guantánamo to the filing cabinets of the Third Reich, the acclaimed writer Cullen Murphy traces the Inquisition and its legacy, showing that not only did its offices survive into the twentieth century, but in the modern world its spirit is more influential than ever.

With the combination of vivid immediacy and learned analysis that characterized his acclaimed Are We Rome?, Murphy puts a human face on a familiar but little-known piece of our past and argues that only by understanding the Inquisition can we hope to explain the making of the present.

Product details

• Authors: Cullen Murphy
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 22.01.2013
• EAN: 9780547844589
• ISBN: 978-0-547-84458-9
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 203 mm x 19 mm
• Weight: 254 g
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Christianity, History of Religion, Christian Churches, denominations, groups, General and world history, Philosophy of religion, Personal religious testimony and popular inspirational works, Religion and beliefs, European history: medieval period, middle ages, European history: Renaissance, Religious institutions and organizations, HISTORY: WORLD, RELIGION: Inspirational, HISTORY: Medieval, RELIGION: Christian Theology / History, RELIGION: Christian Church / History, PHILOSOPHY: Religious, HISTORY: Europe / General, HISTORY: Renaissance, RELIGION: Philosophy, RELIGION: Faith, RELIGION: Christian Church / Growth