He held lectureships in Spanish at Oxford University (1956–58), Southampton (1958–60), and Queen Mary College, London (1960–63), was Head of the Spanish Department at Queen Mary College from 1963 to 1973 (being appointed Professor in 1967) and Cervantes Professor of Spanish at King's College, London, in 1983, until his retirement in 1990.
According to historian Tamar Herzog writing in The International History Review, the book is written in "clear and precise language" addressed to non-specialists, and "answers many important questions".
[3] Historian Trevor Dadson, writing in The Times Literary Supplement said that the book synthesized a "mass of information" mostly in Spanish and made it available to English-speaking reader.
[4] However, Dadson criticized the book's "few weaknesses", including inadequately answering the question of how widespread the practice of crypto-Islam was during the period, over-reliance on incorrect secondary sources, and for "skating over" the fact that many Moriscos were assimilated.
[4] The Times Literary Supplement later published Harvey's response to Dadson, in which he defended the book saying that the book does talk about the assimilated Moriscos, and that he brought "abundant, overwhelming" evidence from the Muslims' literature and from Inquisition trial records indicating that most of the nominal converts clung to the Islamic faith in secret.