Description:
The Middle Ages are often thought of as an era during which cruelty was a major aspect of life, a view that stems from the anti-Catholic polemics of the Reformation. Daniel Baraz makes the striking discovery that the concept of cruelty, which had been...
Brief description: Daniel Baraz received his Ph.D. in History from the Hebrew University and was a Mellon Postdoctoral fellow at the Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania (2000-2001).
Review Quotes:
The ambiguity of cruelty, whereby it might be used both to excoriate the torturer and glorify the martyr, to demonize the criminal and justify the law, or to explain why the English were superior to the French, is also nicely brought out. Here, then, is a useful lesson in the immense difficulties, as well as in the valuable rewards that come from asking the right questions, in dealing with the elusive history of ideas.
-- "Virginia Quarterly Review"