"José Faur's In the Shadow of History is a stunning portrayal of how the converso thinkers of sixteenth century Spain may have stimulated the emergence of scientific skepticism in modern Europe. Faur combines extensive text-historiographic research with penetrating philosophic analysis and then presents us with his conclusions in the context of a bold speculative vision of the telos of modern Jewish and modern western thinking. His book fills a historiographic lacunae in recent scholarship while also promoting a provocative thesis about the contributions of Spanish Jewry to the mind-set of modern Europe." — Peter Ochs, Drew University"Faur's book constitutes a kind of spiritual autobiography, in which the author's search for his family's intellectual roots takes the reader through a process of history 'recovered' par excellence. Within the realm of Jewish history, this book provides some fresh insights on the often studied phenomena of converso/marranos, going beyond the cataloging of acts of heroism and treachery, and instead focusing on those points common to all who faced the tragedy of Spanish Jewry. Faur manages to uncover a 'secret' history of ideas developed among the converso intellectuals, whose experience of rejection and racism generated literary reactions that would eventually undermine the society that mistreated them." — Dr. Gershon Bacon, Bar-Ilan University
