Richard L. Kagan is Academy Professor of History and Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor Emeritus of History at Johns Hopkins University.

"Richard Kagan brings Henry Charles Lea to life in this deeply researched and beautifully written biography. Skillfully interweaving Lea's scholarly career as a pathbreaking historian of the Inquisition, his family life and business affairs, and his public interventions as a political reformer in his native Philadelphia, Kagan shows how a figure who did so much to shape our understanding of the medieval world also played a part in the creation of a modern metropolis and nation." (Andrew Heath, author of In Union There Is Strength: Philadelphia in the Age of Urban Consolidation) "The Inquisition's Inquisitor is a groundbreaking study of one of the most important American historians of early modern Spain. We have never possessed an investigation of Henry Charles Lea that delved into how he acquired his methods, found his sources, gauged his audience, and managed to combine multiple careers. Deftly organized, astutely thematic, and beautifully written, Richard Kagan's book is a revelation. It illuminates for the first time the tensions, quandaries, and ironies that pervaded Lea's life, while simultaneously demonstrating how historians can have the best inductive intentions yet remain imprisoned by premises they have inherited." (Lou Ann Homza, author of Village Infernos and Witches' Advocates: Witch Hunting in Navarre, 1609–1614) "Richard Kagan has written a riveting biography of Henry Charles Lea, a great American intellectual and an intriguing character. The scholarly hammer of intolerance and of the medieval Inquisition, Lea was also an important publisher and a builder of Philadelphia. What emerges from this exemplary and entertaining account is an inspiring example of ambition for fame expressed not only by accumulating wealth but in pursuing indefatigably the work of the historian." (Paul Freedman, author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination)

Richard L. Kagan is Academy Professor of History and Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor Emeritus of History at Johns Hopkins University.

"Richard Kagan brings Henry Charles Lea to life in this deeply researched and beautifully written biography. Skillfully interweaving Lea's scholarly career as a pathbreaking historian of the Inquisition, his family life and business affairs, and his public interventions as a political reformer in his native Philadelphia, Kagan shows how a figure who did so much to shape our understanding of the medieval world also played a part in the creation of a modern metropolis and nation." (Andrew Heath, author of In Union There Is Strength: Philadelphia in the Age of Urban Consolidation) "The Inquisition's Inquisitor is a groundbreaking study of one of the most important American historians of early modern Spain. We have never possessed an investigation of Henry Charles Lea that delved into how he acquired his methods, found his sources, gauged his audience, and managed to combine multiple careers. Deftly organized, astutely thematic, and beautifully written, Richard Kagan's book is a revelation. It illuminates for the first time the tensions, quandaries, and ironies that pervaded Lea's life, while simultaneously demonstrating how historians can have the best inductive intentions yet remain imprisoned by premises they have inherited." (Lou Ann Homza, author of Village Infernos and Witches' Advocates: Witch Hunting in Navarre, 1609–1614) "Richard Kagan has written a riveting biography of Henry Charles Lea, a great American intellectual and an intriguing character. The scholarly hammer of intolerance and of the medieval Inquisition, Lea was also an important publisher and a builder of Philadelphia. What emerges from this exemplary and entertaining account is an inspiring example of ambition for fame expressed not only by accumulating wealth but in pursuing indefatigably the work of the historian." (Paul Freedman, author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination)