God's Jury

The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World

By: Cullen Murphy

Narrated by: Robertson Dean

The Inquisition conducted its last execution in 1826-the victim was a Spanish schoolmaster convicted of heresy. But as Cullen Murphy shows in this provocative new work, not only did its offices survive into the 20th century, in the modern world its spirit is more influential than ever. God's Jury encompasses the diverse stories of the Knights Templar, Torquemada, Galileo, and Graham Greene. 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 and 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, Murphy traces the Inquisition and its legacy.

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.

©2012 Cullen Murphy (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"When virtue arms itself - beware! Lucid, scholarly, elegantly told, God's Jury is as gripping as it is important." (James Carroll)

Interesting but repetitive

Interesting read that covers the broad history of the many different inquisitions and how they helped shaped the modern Western world. While it does provide some details, I felt that it was skimming over many topics. The author repeats many of the same points throughout the book, but using the same basic evidence to his points. It left me thinking the book could have been half the size.

The Inquisition? It Isn't Over

Begun in 1231, The Inquisition left a dark stain on the Catholic Church which remains to date. Now Cullen Murphy in ‘God’s Jury: The Inquisition and the Making of the Modern World’ places the era into historical context. Murphy first shows that The Inquisition was not the first in history to afflict humanity and definitely shows it was not the last. Inquisitions have continued to plague the populace ever since. Murphy shows how and why this has become the case. The Inquisition, he argues, set the tone, provided the model, and set processes in place to insure people would continue to be plagued by similar inquiries to the present. He deftly shows how The Inquisition influences our daily living in the modern world. That is the strength of the book. Readers interested in a history of The Inquisition alone might be disappointed. The focus is on The Inquisition and its influence upon subsequent bureaucratic monitoring of people and their daily lives and thought. Readers who approach the book with that in mind will find it very thought provoking. Particularly interesting to me was Murphy’s description how the Vatican is releasing Inquisition files and allowing access to researchers and others interested. In the last chapters, Murphy yields to speculation which was troubling though he might be proven right. For example, Murphy complains about how the Texas school officials influence K-12 book content and worries about where thinking might be among the population in 60 years. I don’t disagree with Murphy, but it really was not necessary and didn’t seem to add to the analysis he provided elsewhere. Over all, this is a troubling book and everyone interested in public policy, freedom, and privacy needs to open it and spend some time within its covers. The reading of Robertson Dean is excellent.

People never change but are called by new names and titles

The juxtaposition of the inquisition to modern counterparts (censoring for the better good) by ambitious people and the enthusiasm by population.

For all who follow, or abhor, the Catholic Church

Brilliantly narrated. He managed to keep the contempt any thinking person must surely feel from his voice, which is more than I could have done...

Disappointing

Any additional comments?

No more books with "modern world" in its title. I was hoping for a history of the Inquisitions, but I got to here more about Guantanamo than I really wanted.