Toby Green (1) (1974–)
Forfatter af Inquisition: The Reign of Fear
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Om forfatteren
Toby Green is a senior lecturer in Lusophone African history and culture at King's College London and is the author of The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589.
Værker af Toby Green
A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution (2019) 145 eksemplarer
Thomas More's Magician: A Novel Account of Utopia in Mexico (Phoenix Paperback Series) (2004) 42 eksemplarer
Associated Works
Satte nøgleord på
Almen Viden
- Fødselsdato
- 1974-02-12
- Køn
- male
- Nationalitet
- England
UK - Fødested
- London, England, UK
- Uddannelse
- University of Birmingham (Ph.D|2007)
- Erhverv
- Professor
- Organisationer
- King's College, London
- Priser og hædersbevisninger
- British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (2015)
Philip Leverhulme Prize for History (2017)
Medlemmer
Anmeldelser
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Associated Authors
Statistikker
- Værker
- 8
- Also by
- 1
- Medlemmer
- 502
- Popularitet
- #49,320
- Vurdering
- 3.1
- Anmeldelser
- 9
- ISBN
- 61
- Sprog
- 7
Both countries oppressed conversos, Jews who had converted to Christianity, even if they had done so voluntarily and were devout Catholics. This persecution extended to remote descendants especially when the Inquisition's role had switched more to establishing people's genealogy to determine if they were allowed to be appointed to certain jobs or even get married. Another later role of the Inquisition was in maintaining lists of banned books, censoring books and visiting publishers and booksellers. Huge amounts of bureaucracy were required, and the banning of modern writers of the period and the scientific outlook all helped to contribute to the decline of Spain and Portugal, especially as the expulsion of the Muslims had resulted in the loss of most agricultural knowledge and labour in Spain.
The book makes use of the personal stories of various victims of the two Inquisitions and also makes clear the corruption among a lot of officials, which was not restricted to self enrichment but frequently involved sexual abuse of women. The knowledge that every town or even village had men, often of bad character, who were empowered to spy on and denounce neighbours who might end up being burned at the stake, sometimes with the 'mercy' of being garroted first, must have created a type of police state in which ordinary people lived in fear. Green makes the case for this being the blueprint for a lot of oppressive regimes of later centuries though oddly enough, he omits the obvious one of Nazi Germany which shared the Inquisition's obsession with 'purity of blood', was just as bureaucratic, encouraged people to denounce neighbours and even family members, and which also insisted on genealogical proof of a lack of Jewish forebears going back several generations for women who wanted to marry members of the SS.
The book, for me, merits only a three star rating because its style is a bit turgid and Green repeatedly makes the same points. Also he jumps about in the timeline a lot which doesn't help the clarity. Although there are page numbers in footnotes to go back to a previous section where a person, family or incident was covered before, I found at least one reference where the page number was wrong. Plus Green stresses the political nature of both these Inquisitions, subservient to the crown and minimises the earlier atrocities committed by the original Papal Inquisition, although from previous histories I've read, that was just as bad.
So it is quite a good overall history, especially for its inclusion of the overseas colonies, and makes some good suggestions about the psychology of the Inquisitions and their role in the decline of the two Iberian countries, but comes over as a bit dry and repetitive on occasion.… (mere)