Cullen Murphy is the editor at large at Vanity Fair and the former managing editor of the Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of Are We Rome?, The Word According to Eve, and the essay collection Just Curious.
"In his typically compelling style.....Murphy powerfully shows that
the impulse to inquisition can quietly take root in any
system--civil or religious--that orders our lives."--Publishers
Weekly "Entertaining, lively chronicle of the Inquisition, touching
on a wide variety of issues across the centuries."--Kirkus
Reviews
"Cullen Murphy's account of the Inquisition is a dark but riveting
tale, told with luminous grace. The Inquisition, he shows us,
represents more than a historical episode of religious persecution.
The drive to root out heresy and sin, once and for all, is
emblematic of the modern age and a persisting danger in our
time."
--Michael J. Sandel, author of Justice: What's the Right Thing to
Do?
"From Torquemada to Guantanamo and beyond, Cullen Murphy finds the
'inquisorial Impulse' alive, and only too well, in our world. His
engaging romp through the secret Vatican archives shows that the
distance between the Dark Ages and Modernity is shockingly short.
Who knew that reading about torture could be so entertaining?"
--Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side.
"God's Jury is a reminder, and we need to be constantly reminded,
that the most dangerous people in the world are the righteous, and
when they wield real power, look out. At once global and chillingly
intimate in its reach, the Inquisition turns out to have been both
more and less awful than we thought. Murphy wears his erudition
lightly, writes with quiet wit, and has a delightful way of seeing
the past in the present."
--Mark Bowden, author of Guest of the Ayatollah
"When virtue arms itself - beware! Lucid, scholarly, elegantly
told, God's Jury is as gripping as it is important."
--James Carroll, author of Jerusalem, Jerusalem
"There will never be a finer example of erudition, worn lightly and
wittily, than this book. As he did in Are We Rome?, Cullen Murphy
manages to instruct, surprise, charm, and amuse in his history of
ancient matters deftly connected to the present."
--James Fallows, National Correspondent for The Atlantic
"The Inquisition is a dark mark in the history of the Catholic
Church. But it was not the first inquisition nor the last as Cullen
Murphy shows in this far-ranging, informed, and (dare one say?)
witty account of its reach down to our own time in worldly affairs
more than ecclesiastical ones."
-- Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, former editor, Commonweal
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