This meticulously researched and elegantly written study chronicles the Morisco population of the Castilian frontier town of Deza—situated approximately 56 kilometers southeast of Soria, near the border with Aragon—from the forced conversions of Castilian Muslims beginning in 1502 to their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1611. Central to the author's methodology is a focus on local history and the individual that seeks “to recover something of the lost lives of Deza's Moriscos” (13). In his introduction, O'Banion details a long-held tendency among Morisco historians to portray these sixteenth-century Muslim converts to Catholicism through a “monolithic” lens. That is, late nineteenth-century historians including Manuel Danvila y Collado, Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, and Pascual Boronat y Barrachina considered Moriscos as though they were a unified population—an approach that has continued, in part, to this day. Even Leonard Patrick Harvey's Muslims in Spain, 1500–1614 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), an indispensable introduction for any student of Morisco studies, describes Moriscos in largely geographical terms: Castilian, Aragonese, Valencian, and Granadan. It is often only those Moriscos known by name, due either to their significant literary output (the Mancebo de Arévalo, Isa ben Gebir, and perhaps the enigmatic Escribano family) or to their status among the educated elite (Miguel de Luna and Francisco Núñez Muley), who earn a place in the history books. “This depersonalization,” writes O'Banion, “combined with a focus on elites (who left behind better records) and impersonal historical forces, has led scholars to depict Moriscos as passive, disempowered, impoverished, and marginalized” (3). At the turn of the twenty-first century, Trevor Dadson championed a path of critical inquiry that focused on the local with his studies of the Moriscos of Villarrubia de Los Ojos. Dadson's model has proven foundational for O'Banion's own research on the Moriscos, as evidenced by this and earlier publications.

The first chapter provides an introductory history of the town of Deza. Each of the remaining ten chapters focuses on the lives and experiences of individual Moriscos. Their stories provide a point of departure for the exploration of themes common to Morisco studies as they manifested in the daily lives of Deza's Moriscos and in their interactions with Old Christian populations. The practices of Alexo Gorgoz, for instance, exemplified efforts to present as Christian (taqiyya) while maintaining an inward devotion to Islam (niyya). Moriscas the likes of María la Jarquina played crucial roles in preserving Islamic religious knowledge and passing it on to their children. Three chapters chronicle the rise of healer Román Ramírez el menor to Dezan nobility, charges of diabolical intercession in his medicinal practices, and his resulting Inquisitorial trial. The final three chapters document the intensification of Inquisitorial activity and violent conflict between Moriscos and Old Christians during the four years leading up to the expulsion of the former on July 8, 1611.

Written with the specialist in Moriscos historical and cultural studies in mind, the straight-forward prose and attention to detail make this work accessible to non-specialists and students alike. Among the greatest strengths of this study is the range of primary sources consulted. O'Banion acknowledges that while Inquisitorial records are essential to understanding “the overall narrative” (9) of Deza's Moriscos, they must be read in dialogue with other local and regional sources. Among those consulted for this study are Deza municipal records, parish archives from El Burgo de Osma, and records from other archives including the Royal Appellate Court of Valladolid, the Archivo Histórico Provincial of Zaragoza, the Archivo General in Simancas, and the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid. Secondary sources represent the gamut of historical approaches to early modern Iberia and the Moriscos, including depictions of Morisco characters in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literature. O'Banion carefully weaves together these multiple, often contradictory, accounts of Morisco history and identity. The result is a balanced, objective tome that challenges readers to confront this plurality of voices head on. For instance, debating the literacy of Román Ramírez el menor, the author speculates, based on one Inquisitorial account, that he may have been among the pupils of the priest Gonzalo de Santa Clara who taught several of Ramírez's peers to read. This contradicts the playwright Ruiz de Alarcón who portrayed Ramírez as illiterate. In his own words, before an Inquisitorial tribunal in 1599, Ramírez admits that he was somewhat literate, having taught himself to read over time. Other records from the 1560s attest that he had known how to read from his youth and had committed a number of books to memory. Rather than taking a definitive stance in light of the fragments of information, O'Banion presents a complex dialogue that he acknowledges is ongoing.

As a point of practical merit, O'Banion frequently includes key words and phrases in Spanish as parenthetical references when translating and paraphrasing primary sources in English: New Moorish Converts (nuevos cristianos de moros or moriscos), muleteers (arrieros or trajineros), constable or bailiff (alguacil), chief magistrate (alcalde mayor), Arabic script (moriego), knaves (bellacos), etc. This practice provides a useful resource for those who wish to acquire specialized terminology in the original language while also helping to minimize the risk of mistranslation or misinterpretation. Additionally, he includes five family trees for the Almanzorre-Almoravi, Guerrero, Ramírez, and Barnuevo families, and of the family of the Dukes of Medinaceli.

In Deza and Its Moriscos, Patrick J. O'Banion astutely illustrates the extent to which Morisco religious identity and practice, clandestine or overt, existed on a spectrum. Individual Moriscos negotiated the terms of their identities in accordance with the demands of their environments. Similarly, this examination demonstrates how relationships, alliances, and enmities between Old Christians and Moriscos and within the Morisco community itself were perpetually evolving.