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In “Chapter Three,” Lee studies texts that convey the notion that if armed with knowledge about the distinguishing features of Conversos, Old Christians could become proficient at identifying even the most sophisticated veneer of sameness. Lee focuses on religious and medical treatises aimed at rendering the Converso body as subhuman and tainted. These prescriptive texts written by theologians Pedro Aznar Cardona, Vicente da Costa Matos, Francisco de Torrejoncillo, and the medical doctor Juan de Quiñones argued—making extensive references to biblical, classical, and scientific sources—that Jews and Conversos exhibited their sinfulness through physical signs, such as elongated rears, skin eruptions, and/or suffered from periodic anal bleedings. Lee also examines Libros verdes, anonymous genealogical catalogues aimed at exposing the hidden Converso taint in the ancestries of distinguished families.

In “Chapter Four,” Lee analyzes popular songs, anecdotes, aphorisms, and jokes that were invested in perpetuating the image of Conversos as essentially greedy, non-pork-eating Jews. She examines the construction of the Converso body as a grotesque, sub-human entity in the anonymous Diálogo entre Laín Calvo y Nuño Rasura and in Quevedo’s satirical poetry. She discusses Lope de Vega’s little known play, El galán escarmentado, which specifically addresses the Old Christian anxiety of being unknowingly stained by the passing Conversos through marriage. She concludes her discussion of the fear of passing Conversos with an analysis of Cervantes’ El retablo de las maravillas, a play representing the madness and disorder that ensues when limpieza-obsessed Old Christians find themselves incapable of tagging the impure subjects who, they believe, live amongst them.

In the “Conclusion,” Lee posits two questions that arise from her study of early modern sameness but that fall outside the bounds of her book. The first concerns the reasons why New Christians and the underprivileged would attempt to subjugate others like themselves. Possible explanations might include a desire to prove his/her (either truthful or false) alliance to the dominant group, and the internalization of the dominant’s belief that his/her lineage and inherited culture is defective. Another inquiry that naturally emerges from Lee’s study is the substantial reduction in discourses that express the anxiety of sameness. She suggests that the decline could be the result of a decrease in the elite’s preoccupation with social infiltration due to the fact that in the 1700s the barriers to enter the nobility were substantially raised and commoners were less likely to pass into the hidalgo class.

“Spanish-Atlantic History and Culture” provides a brief background on Spanish-Atlantic history and the connections between Andalucía, Spain, and the Americas. The first half of the chapter addresses trade and emigration policies between the late fifthteenth century and the eighteenth century and how these impacted life and local economies on both sides of the Atlantic. The second half of the chapter explores themes of status and identity, with a special focus on the Spanish limpieza de sangre (“pure blood”) and casta (caste or social status based on ancestry and biological characteristics) systems in which individuals were classified according to their ancestry and religious or biological background. It concludes with a discussion of Spanish identity and identity crises, specifically those in 1766, 1808, and 1898.

The chapter presents the terror strategy used by paramilitaries in Colombia. In particular, it chronicles the takeover of two towns in the subregion of Eastern Antioquia. The paramilitary’s spectacular violence is a violence meant to purify, to cleanse. The author chronicles his fieldwork in the town of Granada, for a long time dominated by the guerrillas. The paramilitary penetrated the town one morning, randomly killing several people. The testimony of the people gives tales of terror. A paramilitary explains what the purpose of their social cleansing is.