Contesting Sacrifice (Hardcover, 2nd ed.)

"Contesting Sacrifice" traces the political theology of sacrifice in France. Ivan Strenski contends that debates over sacrifice among Catholics, Protestants, and free thinkers were pivotal to some of the most profound crises in French history. The idea of sacrifice, he shows, was an exposed nerve of French political culture: a constant irritant, too important to ignore, too fearsome to think away, and thus constantly interrogated by French thinkers of different ideological persuasions.
According to Strenski, the French dialogue on sacrifice originated in Reformation-era controversies over the nature of the Eucharist and its political associations with absolute monarchy. He contends that this Roman Catholic theology and its intransigent variants dominated French discourse on religion and nationalism for over three centuries. The idea of sacrifice functioned as an impetus for conceptualizing public attitudes toward the execution of Louis XVI, Michelet's call to nationhood, the punishment of Dreyfus, questions about the obligation of citizens to the Third Republic, and the meaning of death and heroism during the First and Second World Wars.
Pointing out that every major theorist of sacrifice is French, including Bataille, Durkheim, Girard, Hubert, and Mauss, "Contesting Sacrifice" ultimately confirms that we cannot fully understand their work, or for that matter French culture, without first taking into account the deep roots of sacrificial thought. Drawing on meticulous research and brimming with insight, this study will prove indispensable to intellectual historians, historians of France, and scholars or religion and its relationship to politics.

General

Imprint:	University of Chicago Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	July 2002
First published:	July 2002
Authors:	Ivan Strenski
Dimensions:	238 x 156 x 24mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	237
Edition:	2nd ed.
ISBN-13:	978-0-226-77736-8
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > European history > General Books > History > European history > General Promotions
LSN:	0-226-77736-7
Barcode:	9780226777368

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