"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.
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