The Marranos of Spain: From the Late 14th to the Early 16th Century, According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources (0801485681) - Reviews and Prices
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The Marranos of Spain: From the Late 14th to the Early 16th Century, According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources (0801485681) - Customer Reviews, Information, Ratings, and Prices
The Marranos of Spain: From the Late 14th to the Early 16th Century, According to Contemporary Hebrew Sources (0801485681) - Reviews and Prices
B. Netanyahu, one of the world's foremost medievalists, has made a lifelong project of studying the historical evolution of Marranism and seeking to ascertain the genesis of the Spanish Inquisition. In this seminal work, which opened an ongoing debate on the nature of conversion and belief in late medieval Spain, Netanyahu analyzes evidence on the Marranos contained in the Hebrew sources.
For this new edition, the author has updated the book and added an Afterword in which he considers some of the scholarly reactions to the work since the publication of the first edition in 1966.
"This book's revolutionary thesis dispels the romanticized heroic image of the Marrano found in Jewish literary and historical annals," says Isaac Barzilay, Professor Emeritus at Columbia University. "Netanyahu's conception of the Marranos is of a people whose majority hardly resisted assimilation to Spanish culture and Christianity. Consequently, he unhesitatingly rejects the Inquisition's claim that it was established for the sole purpose of preserving the integrity of Christianity against the undermining effects of Marranism."
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Christians or Apostates?:
The Marranos of Spain is a landmark study for this period of Spanish history and the Jews of Spain. Its importance lies within the utlized sources, which for the first time in the scholarly research of Marranos, someone is intelligent enough to integrate Hebrew sources, religous as well as secular, in order to have a better picture.
However, Netanyahu's analysis leaves much to be desired. The debate about his analysis and contradictions have been discussed in Spanish Academia, and they are mainly due to... more info
