Customer Reviews

Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain

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Roth consulted some records but apparently failed to understand the explicit meaning of forced conversion. This work is an example of failing to use the whole record for an accurate conclusion. There are many inquistion records, especially in the New World, of Jews clinging to the faith of their fathers and dying in inquisitional flames as a result. Also, the Amsterdam Jewish community was established by Crypto-Jews this author contends didn't exist. This blatant failure to get the facts right leads one to believe that Roth either has a hidden motive or is incompetent beyond belief.

If you are new to this toppic then this is the right book for you. You'll get the historical dates of the Spanish Inquisition and some more informations about the life of Jews in this time, including all problems Jews had to deal with. If you get interested in the Conversos you should read Benzion Netanyahu's books that are dealing with more background informations.

I was very disappointed with this book and I will be giving it to Goodwill or getting rid of it so that others are not misled. On one of the first pages at the bottom of the Acknowledgments, the author thanks U of Wisconsin press for publishing a book that no one else wanted to publish, "simply because of its length." Uh, no, it's because it is not a very good or accurate book, yet the author goes on and on about how everyone else is wrong and they don't have anything to back up their ideas. It would be very interesting to understand what is driving this author. He was too busy looking for the crypto Jews in Spain that he has no idea where they went, therefore they must not have existed at all. He couldn't find them because they were busy hiding out in the mountains of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado, among other places.

Powerful, rebellious and intimidatingly concise, Norman Roth's tribute challenges our archaic assumptions. Unlike the typical perverse imagination many historical documents protect, "The Conversos, Inquisition, And The Expulsion Of The Jews From Spain" interrogates data, expels misconceptions and, very much like Einstein, reconfigures historical gravity.