Reference Reviews

Reference for Students

The Inquisition. By Don Nardo. Detroit, Mich.: Lucent Books Thomson Gale, 2008. 1 vol. 104 p. $32.45. ISBN 10: 1-59018-653-2; 13: 978-1-59018-653-4.

In studying the history of the U.S., students learn that Queen Isabella and Prince Ferdinand financed the voyage of Columbus to find the Western Hemisphere. They are less aware that they were responsible for the creation of the Spanish Inquisition. The book's 2-page timeline starts with 476 and the fall of Rome and ends with 1939-1941, World War II. An "Introduction" chapter is followed by "The Media Inquisition," "Victims and Martyrs of the Medieval Inquisition," three chapters on the Spanish Inquisition and "The Roman Inquisition vs. Science." An "Epilogue" ends the inquisition. Inset boxes offer additional information; one has "What Did It Cost to Burn Someone" with amount for straw, large wood, vine-branches, four stakes, ropes and executioners. This book has color and black and white drawings, reproductions and maps. One in particular needs to be revised for the schematic for defining the "European Religious Distribution, 1540" does not match the map itself. The dark green with small yellow dots for "Calvinist influence" is scarcely discernable from the solid green, "Roman Catholic." The Muslim area is solid maroon while the area is striped, and the "Lutheran" is both vertical and slanted strips. One area that is green with yellow stripes has no box, and white with strips for "Orthodox" has no corresponding area on the map. A 2-page bibliography of books and Web sites are in the Appendix. You should show this to your world history teachers to see if this will add to their study of this period of history.