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Notwithstanding prior reviewers' judgments, Reston's history is a travesty. Dogs of War purports to describe the "apocalyptic" consequences of the destruction of the Moorish Kingdom of Granada, the expulsion of practicing Jews from Spain and the discovery of the Americas. Reston attempts to describe the origins and nature of the Inquisition, but in fact does little to clearly or accurately portray its scope and nature. It reads more like a history for middle-schoolers than for grown-ups. Its one merit was that his simplistic and unqualified arguments drove me to find additional sources to check his facts and claims. The contrast between the Dogs of God and Henry Kamen's The Spanish Inquisition (1999) could not be starker: Kamen's book is history, Reston's is little more than a well-written polemic. Reston's own admission that "This is not history in the traditional sense..." is perhaps one of the few assertions in the book that can be taken at face value. One of the most amazing omissions in Reston's book is any effort to actually quantify the numbers of individuals who were victims of the Inquisition. Clearly, a single victim to such an unjust and horrifying tribunal is one too many, but in writing a history it makes sense to introduce some level of proportionality. Reston seems anxious to equate the Inquisition with the Holocaust. Certainly both are examples of rampant and primeval racism, but the equivalency diminishes the singularity of the most horrific crime in human history. Reston uses no footnotes!! There is no way one can check his sources or his interpretation of those sources. There is little evidence that he seriously examined original sources. I am no expert in this period, but one example may serve to illustrate the weaknesses of Reston's book. His bibliography includes an earlier edition of Kamen's book (1965). Either he read Kamen's book and chose to ignore the arguments therein or he simply didn't bother to read the book. The treatment of the same events is so different that I fear the latter must be the case - since a "knowing" distortion is by far the greater failure. Both Reston (pages 74-75) and Kamen (pages 46-47) relate the same story about one Diego de Susan, an immensely rich Converso (a Christian with Jewish heritage), and his efforts in 1480/1 to form a resistance to the Inquisition that came to his home town of Seville in 1480. Betrayed, apparently by his daughter, Diego de Susan was caught and executed by the Inquisition. Both writers relate essentially the same story, though Kamen provides specific references for his account. Kamen, however, after relating the story notes: "The whole story about the plot and betrayal was in reality a myth: Susan had died before 1479, the plot is undocumented, and there was no daughter Susanna." Reston treats the story as a fact, an indisputable example of the power and force of the Inquisition. (Note: In fairness to Reston, it is possible that the earlier edition did not include the above conclusion. However, it is hard to imagine why one would not reference the latest edition of a book by a professional historian. Moreover, Kamen cites supporting sources that also appear in Reston's bibliography.) Thousands died directly at the hands of the inquisition, tens of thousands sufferend the horrors of having to leave their homes and suffer the grim fate that awaited many travellers in the 15th Century and refugees throughout the ages, a hundred thousand gave up their heritage (Kamen's estimates). This is a tragedy that is worth telling and re-telling, lest we allow it to happen again. Unfortunately Reston's approach does not do it justice. Why write a book that is so incomplete and so flawed? Perhaps the answer lies in Mr. Reston's politics. His Prologue suggests that America was in some sense borne out of the crimes and excesses of the Spanish Inquisition and the triumph of Christianity over Islam in the re-conquest of Granada. And, moreover, that we, as Americans, should be more mindful of these origins and more understanding of the continued hostility of Muslims to their treatment by the Spanish in 1492! Unfortunately, Mr. Reston's bad history simplistically and inappropriately legitimizes today's terrorism in Madrid's Railway Station. By all means read the book, but have some real histories on hand to provide the facts and perspective.