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)

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.

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.

Great book

Very enjoyable. Balanced with good material about the past and futures . A must read for anyone interested in this subject.

Beyond fascinating!

About so much more than the Inquisition(s). Full of insights and factual and archival revelations. Also very well written.

A balanced review based on new material

I really enjoyed the book but I wish he spent more time on the Church and the Inquisition(s) themselves. Although the premise concerns how the Inquisition shaped the modern world, there is not much new in the last quarter of the book.

It begins by explaining that there were actually 3 major Inquisitions, the Medieval, Spanish and Roman, each with its own personality. He then delves into the historical context and actual transcripts from the trials. The latter have only recently been made available by the Vatican which makes this an early work of an entirely new genre of historically researched scholarship in this area.

He takes care to point out that the reality is less sensational than the myth. He is also eager to present a view of the Inquisition that is not driven by any particular agenda, and here he succeeds. He is neither a Church apologist nor a torch bearing towns-person.

Unfortunately, the last quarter of the book provides a lengthy discussion of Nazi Germany, McCarthyism and Guantanamo Bay and tries to paint them as latter day Inquisitions. I did not find the comparison particularly insightful (Can't nearly any act of official oppression be likened to the Inquisitions?) and the book lost momentum for me in the end.

The performance was very good--thoughtful, well paced and clear.

I would recommend it to someone interested in the Inquisitions, but lower your expectations for the "making of the modern world" aspect.

One of the best

I have listened to dozens of audible books almost all non fiction. This was one of the best cover to cover.

Political diatribe. Fallacious sophistry.

“Say what you will about the inquisition, but it was an unequivocal success in one respect. Everyone knows its name. And everyone knows at least enough to throw its name around casually, to summon the inquisition as a metaphor, to exploit it for entertainment, to wield it in argument, as a quiet stiletto, or a clumsy bludgeon.”

A self-fulfilling prophecy for Murphy, who then adeptly wields the inquisition as a metaphor to bludgeon any soul with the audacity to challenge cultural relativism.