"In The Judge and the Historian Carlo Ginzburg draws on his work on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century witchcraft trials to dissect the weaknesses and contradictions of the state's case in a late-twentieth-century political show-trial (Lotta Continua). Carefully exposing the twists and turns of the various proceedings, Ginzburg also takes the opportunity to reflect more generally on the similarities and differences between the roles of judge and historian. Standing in the tradition of Emile Zola's famous J'accuse polemic against the Dreyfus trial at the end of the 1900s, Ginzburg's book demonstrates the continuing potency of intellectual rigour and passion against political opportunism and dishonesty at the end of this century."--BOOK JACKET.