Jacques Barzun, “From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life,” First Perennial, 2001.

“Inquisition as such, that is, apart from methods and severity of results, has remained a live institution. The many dictatorships of the 20C have relied on it and in free countries it thrives ad hoc… In the United States at the present time the workings of ‘political correctness’ in universities and the speech police that punishes persons and corporations … are manifestations of the permanent spirit of inquisition.” (p. 109)

“For to suppose that from antiquity they [women] have been uniformlly oppressed, used as druges by their husbands, as chattle by their lords, is to acccept a stereotype and forget their possession of the very qualitites women want to vindicate: intelligence, self-respect, and resourcefuless in exerting their native powers.” (p. 234)