The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God

Jonathan Kirsch, author of The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God, shows how the medieval Inquisition invented and perfected the use of terror as a weapon against individuality and diversity-and he explores how "the inquisitorial toolbox" has been repurposed by authoritarians over the last eight hundred years, ranging from Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia to the Hollywood blacklist and the war on terror.

The friar-inquisitors relied on legal fictions, conspiracy theories and religious true belief to justify the persecution of marginalized men, women and children, and their fingerprints can be detected in our language, culture, and habits of thought. Just as the "ordeal by water" of the High Middle Ages is nowadays called "waterboarding," the real history of the Inquisition continues to caution us against taking our liberties too lightly.

Jonathan Kirsch is the author of twelve books, including the national bestseller, The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Tales of the Bible, and his most recent work, the Los Angeles Times bestseller, A History of the End of the World. Kirsch is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and a three-time past president of PEN Center USA West. He lives in Los Angeles.