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Inquisition - 9780312537241

Un libro in lingua di Toby Green edito da St Martins Pr, 2009

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Everybody has heard of the Inquisition. This was an institution that pursued heretics, philandering priests, and sexual deviants not only in Spain and Portugal but also in Africa, Asia, and Latin America for over three centuries, changing its focus with the times and enduring stubbornly into the 1800s. Today, the word implies dread, fear, and a withheld threat of torture. But who were its targets? Why did it provoke such fear? How and where did it operate? Why was it founded and why did it last so long?
Toby Green's new book brings a vast panorama vividly to life by focusing on the hitherto untold stories of individuals from all walks of life and every section of society. We run into witches in Mexico, bigamists in Brazil, Freemasons, Hindus, Jews, Moslems, and Protestants, persecuted political figures and intellectuals under attack. The Inquisition touched every aspect of society; people attending church had to look suitably devout, or they might be denounced; a curse at a game of cards, thrown out in the heat of the moment, could bring an investigation; stripping fat from a leg of lamb was enough to excite accusations of being a Jew. A secret police and a thought police, the Inquisition produced a permanent state of fear and invented an atmosphere of paranoia and institutional persecution that created a precedent for totalitarianism.
This history, though filled with stories of terror and the unspeakable ways in which human beings can treat one another, is also truly a story of hope and ultimately of the resilience of the human spirit. Instead of being cowed by fear, countless people rebelled in small and big ways, paving the way for a more inclusive society.

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