From Tolerance to Tyranny: A Cautionary Tale from Fifteenth-Century Spain

Before the Inquisition, Spain was a tolerant and peaceful society. How, precisely, does a culture that prizes autonomy and harmony within the population descend so quickly into one of the most oppressive nations to have ever existed? Focusing on the humanity of the major historical players, Erna Paris traces the obscure origins of what was to become a brutal and enduring campaign of religious and ethnic conformity through terror and segregation. The conclusions she draws from the annals of Spanish history are enduring lessons on basic human nature, as applicable to the modern world as they are to the medieval.