One thousand years ago there existed in Spain a civilization that was famous throughout Europe. To the horror of the Christian rulers to the north, Jews, Christians and Moors lived together in harmony, and in doing so they created one of the most extraordinary societies the West has ever known.

Yet in a few hundred years, Spain would transform itself from a pluralistic, multicultural society to the least tolerant nation in Europe. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition had established a reign of terror, and the Jews were expelled from the land they had inhabited for 1,500 years. Eventually the Moors were banned as well.

In pinpointing the historical events that turned a culture of tolerance into an autocratic police state, Paris compares what happened in medieval Spain to the social upheavals of twentieth-century Europe. She discovers many striking patterns and also eerie similarities with the social and political unrest in modern-day North America.

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Editions

CANADA: Lester Publishing, 1995, cloth,
ISBN 1-89-5555738; paper ISBN 1-89555-97-3

UNITED STATES: Prometheus Books, 1995, cloth,
ISBN 1-57392-017-7

BULGARIA: Prozor Publishers, 2001, paper,
IBSN is 954-733-194-9

ARGENTINA: Emecé Editores, Fall 2003,
ISBN 950-04-2489-4