How Western Christianity and Eastern philosophy merged to spawn a political movement that had the prohibition of meat at its core.The Bloodless Revolution is a pioneering history of puritanical revolutionaries; European Hinduphiles; and visionary scientists who embraced radical ideas from the East and conspired to overthrow Western society's voracious hunger for meat. At the heart of this compelling history are the stories of John Zephaniah Holwell; survivor of the Black Hole of Calcutta; and John Stewart and John Oswald; who traveled to India in the eighteenth century; converted to the animal-friendly tenets of Hinduism; and returned to Europe to spread the word. Leading figures of the Enlightenmentamong them Rousseau; Voltaire; and Benjamin Franklingave intellectual backing to the vegetarians; sowing the seeds for everything from Victorian soup kitchens to contemporary animal rights and environmentalism. Spanning across three centuries with reverberations to our current world; The Bloodless Revolution is a stunning debut from a young historian with enormous talent and promise. 24 pages of color illustrations
#443831 in Books Cecil Roth 1996-12-17Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.20 x .80 x 5.50l; .62 #File Name: 0393002551320 pagesSpanish Inquisition
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy Douglas C. RoseVery pleased3 of 5 people found the following review helpful. The Vatican will hate it but will not be able to have Cecil Roth burned alive at the stake. Not any more.By JaysonrexThis book; like so many others dealing with the same topic; details what the Catholic Church is all about: a gang of shameless criminals with the Pope as its "Don Corleone" and the Roman Curia as the Mafia Main Gang; that created a fairy tale as an excuse for its malodorous existence.The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more than an attempt by the Vatican to steal the wealth of Spanish Jews under the guise of Christian primacy as a religion.Most Christians will probably hate this book since it reveals the perversity of the Roman Church in its demented quest for dominating the World - by persecuting; torturing and murdering those that belong to the first and only truly monotheistic religion - the Jewish people.I recommend this book to all those honest people that are looking for 'truth as a guiding light'.50 of 57 people found the following review helpful. Solid if unspectacular history of the Spanish InquistionBy Robert MooreIf one is looking for a solid history of the Spanish Inquisition that will introduce the reader with the main events and features of that peculiar institution; one could do worse than read this book. One could also do better; by looking instead at Peters INQUISITION or Henry Kammen's THE SPANISH INQUISITION. But since neither of those books is perfect (Peters covers the Inquisition in all its forms; and as a result the Spanish Inquisition in less detail; while Kammen tends to minimize some of the atrocities); Roth remains an extremely viable alternative.The strongpoint of Roth's account is the clarity with which he tells the story; in particular highlighting some of the consequences that ought to have been anticipated from the manner in which the Inquisition was constructed. For instance; the Inquisition acquired the financial holdings of those whom it convicted of heresy. This; of course; provided the Inquisitors with powerful financial motivation to either find the accused guilty or to extort money from them.The weakness of Roth's book is that while he hints at other views about events of the Inquisition; he never explains what these other views are; or what the underlying issues are.I am utterly mystified by one reviewer who seems to criticize this book because it accuses the Church of anti-Semitism. Is this news? The entire initial point of the Spanish Inquisition was to ferret out Jews who had forcibly been converted to Catholicism and still retained their Jewish beliefs and ceremonies. I am not sure how this cannot be interpreted anti-Semitism; unless one is using some very unusual criteria. Morever; scholars working in a number of areas have detected a fair degree of anti-Semitism in the history of Roman Catholicism. Does this mean that all Roman Catholics in history have been anti-Semites? Absolutely not. But it does mean that it is a phenomenon that has reappeared over and over throughout European history. What possible reason would anyone have for denying that the Spanish Inquisition was not profoundly anti-Semitic? That it was would seem to undeniable to anyone with even the most cursory acquaintance with Spanish history.Other reviewers have felt that Roth is merely out to criticize the Catholic Church. Simply because he critiques one aspect of the Catholic Church doesn't mean that he would find nothing of value within Catholicism. Roth was himself Jewish; so he was not writing from within the Catholic tradition. But I can't understand why someone writing from within the tradition couldn't arrive at an assessment very close to that of Roth's.So; while this isn't the best book on the Spanish Inquisition (indeed; no clearly best book would seem to exist currently); this is a very adequate survey of the subject.
