These two volumes edited by Kevin Ingram propose an innovative approach to the conversos and moriscos themes as related socio-cultural phenomena in Spanish history. Each volume begins with an introduction by Ingram on the historiographical debate of conversos and moriscos studies. In the first essay of volume i, ‘On the concept of Mudejarism’, Francisco Márquez Villanueva examines the problematic issue of coexistence between Christians and the non-Christian minorities, based on group cooperation to avoid violence and war and to promote peace and prosperity in their communities during the high Middle Ages. In ‘Seeking the Messiah: converso messianism in post-1453 Valencia’, Mark Meyerson analyses Rodrigo Cifuentes and his family trial in Valencia in 1464. The Cifuentes were accused of attempting to sail to the Ottoman Empire in order to return to Judaism and await the Jewish Messiah. According to Meyerson the trial documents prove the existence of an extended messianic movement in Valencia. In ‘If there were God’: the problem of unbelief in the Visión deleytable’, Luis Girón reflects on Alfonso de la Torre's philosophical work, and locates it in the converso rationalist vision. In ‘Converso “voices” in fifteen- and sixteenth-century Spanish literature’, Elaine Wertheimer examines converso subtext in the works of six writers living in Spain, Portugal, and Italy and argues that their works were a reaction to the limpieza de sangre laws against the New Christians. In ‘Berenjeneros: the aubergine eaters’, Juan Gil studies the literary falsifications created by converso writers in Toledo to counter the social stigma associate to a Jewish origin, and places this event in the larger context of the limpieza de sangre laws. In ‘Sicilian converts after the expulsion: inter-community relations, acculturation and the preservation of group identity’, Nadia Zeldes explains the relationship between the Spanish conversos and the Old-Christian majority in Sicily, and the changes following 1500 when the Spanish Inquisition began to persecute this ethnic minority. ‘A thorn in the community: popular religious practice and converso dissidence in the district of Molina de Aragón’, by Leonor Zozaya Montes examines the Rodríguez family trial and the complex issues related to the ambiguities of converso identity and religious practices in local Christian communities. In ‘Inquisition and crypto-Judaism: the “complicity’ of the Mora family of Quintanar de la Orden (1588–1592)’, Vincent Parello also examines the trial documents of a family of conversos, who remain Jewish practitioners for several generations and were accused by the Inquisition of Judaising. In ‘Between rumor and resistance: the Andalucían morisco “uprising” of 1580’, Michel Boeglin evaluates the trial documents of the so-called uprising and concludes that the event was a fabrication by the local authorities in Seville to exploit Old-Christian sentiments against the moriscos. In ‘Jerónimo Román de la Higuera and the lead books of Sacromonte’, Mercedes García-Arenal and Fernando Rodríguez Mediano examine the works of the Jesuit Jerónimo Román de la Higuera and the morisco Miguel de Luna who perpetrated one of the major falsifications in Spanish historiography during the sixteenth century. In ‘Maurophilia and the morisco subject’, Barbara Fuchs explores the cultural role of Moorish novels and ballads in the construction of Spain's multicultural and hybridised society. In ‘Manzanares 1600: moriscos from Granada organize a festival of “Moors and Christians”’, William Childers proposes a revision of the critical view on Christian-morisco relations through a re-examination of the Manzanares fairs and their unique message of accord and accommodation. In ‘Sancho Panza and the mimesis of Solomon: medieval Jewish traditions in Don Quijote', Francisco Peña Fernández analyses Cervantes's work in relation to the Jewish cultural traditions and their inter-textual allusions. In the final essay, ‘Historiography, historicity and the conversos’, Kevin Ingram offers a critical revision of Spanish historiography on the conversos from the nineteenth century to the present.

Volume ii opens with the ‘Series introduction: converso and morisco studies’, by Kevin Ingram who identifies the main issues and theoretical problems in the field. In the first essay ‘The Jews and conversos in medieval Segovia’, Bonifacio Bartolomé Herrero studies the Inquisition's impact on the conversos, the loss of contact with other Jewish communities, and the resulting disappearance of this minority group in Segovia. In ‘The Canary moriscos: a different reality’, Luis Alberto Anaya Hernández explains the differences in the origins of the moriscos of the Canary Islands (African slaves), integration (mixed marriages) and social acceptance. Contrary to the peninsular morisco population, the Canary Islands' moriscos were not expelled in 1609 but rather received the right to be considered naturales in 1615. In ‘Inquisitorial activity and the moriscos of Villarubia de los Ojos during the sixteenth century’, Trevor J. Dadson examines the efforts to assimilate of this morisco community and how their successful integration allowed them to avoid expulsion in 1609. In ‘The morisco problem and Seville (1480–1610)’, Manuel F. Fernández Chaves and Rafael M. Pérez García present a new image of the morisco's complex identity that questions the idea of a homogeneous socio-religious group, while presenting a fresh look at the issues of assimilation and integration. In ‘Violence and religious identity in early modern Valencia’, Benjamin Ehlers offer a nuanced analysis of morisco integration, in which internal conflicts, local alliances and fights against outside interlopers transcends the Christian-morisco divide. In ‘On morisco networks and collectives’, Luis F. Bernabé Pons examines the sophisticated morisco networks the primary purpose of which was the creation of points of contact in Spain, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to facilitate morisco flight to Muslim territory. In ‘An extensive network of morisco merchants active circa 1590’, William Childers explains the complexities regarding morisco application for Old Christian status as part of sophisticated organisations that controlled the legal procedures necessary to achieve successful outcomes. As Childers shows, contrary to common belief, these individuals do not abandon their socio-religious group, but rather adopted survival strategies to maintain economic and social unity. In ‘Morisco stories and the complexities of resistance and assimilation’, Mary Elizabeth Perry studies three aljamiado folk tales that are rewritings of Christian biblical stories as evidence of cultural hybridisation, religious syncretism and accommodation. In ‘The morisco problem in its Mediterranean dimension: exile in Cervantes’ Persiles’, Steven Hutchinson points out how Cervantes demonstrates the ambiguities and contradictions regarding the morisco population in Counter-Reformation Spain. In ‘Blindness and anti-semitism in Lope's El niño inocente de la Guardia’, Barbara F. Weissberger offers a nuanced reading of Lope's drama as an opaque interpretation of the concepts of reality and illusion. In ‘Political aspects of the converso problem: on the Portuguese restauraçao of 1640’, Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano examines the difficult relationship between the Church and conversos in Portugal from 1580 to 1640. In the final essay ‘Nowhere to run: the extradition of conversos between the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, François Soyer sheds new light on the collaboration between the inquisitors operating in Spain and Portugal and their fight against heresy.

The two books under review here reflect the growing body of converso and morisco literature and criticism and attest to the rich maturity achieved in this field. The thoughtful editing of Kevin Ingram succeeds in producing an interrelated set of essays while allowing for individual methods and interpretations. The editor has assembled a coherent collection of essays incorporating the changing perspectives that have emerged in converso and morisco studies.