1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910464213903321

Autore

Buc Philippe

Titolo

Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror : Christianity, Violence, and the West / / Philippe Buc

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Philadelphia : , : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2015]

©2015

ISBN

0-8122-2401-9

0-8122-9097-6

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (454 p.)

Collana

Haney Foundation Series

Disciplina

261.873

Soggetti

Terrorism - Religious aspects - Christianity - History

Martyrdom - Christianity - History

War - Religious aspects - Christianity - History

Political violence - Religious aspects - Christianity - History

Violence - Religious aspects - Christianity - History

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction. The Object of This History -- 1. The American Way of War Through the Premodern Looking-Glass -- 2. Christian Exegesis and Violence -- 3. Madness, Martyrdom, and Terror -- 4. Martyrdom in the West: Vengeance, Purge, Salvation, and History -- 5. Twins: National Holy War and Sectarian Terror -- 6. Liberty and Coercion -- 7. The Subject of History and the Making of History -- Post face. No Future to That Past? -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Select Bibliography -- Index -- Acknowledgments

Sommario/riassunto

Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror examines the ways that Christian theology has shaped centuries of conflict from the Jewish-Roman War of late antiquity through the First Crusade, the French Revolution, and up to the Iraq War. By isolating one factor among the many forces that converge in war—the essential tenets of Christian theology—Philippe Buc locates continuities in major episodes of violence perpetrated over the course of two millennia. Even in secularized or explicitly non-



Christian societies, such as the Soviet Union of the Stalinist purges, social and political projects are tied to religious violence, and religious conceptual structures have influenced the ways violence is imagined, inhibited, perceived, and perpetrated. The patterns that emerge from this sweeping history upend commonplace assumptions about historical violence, while contextualizing and explaining some of its peculiarities. Buc addresses the culturally sanctioned logic that might lead a sane person to kill or die on principle, traces the circuitous reasoning that permits contradictory political actions, such as coercing freedom or pardoning war atrocities, and locates religious faith at the backbone of nationalist conflict. He reflects on the contemporary American ideology of war—one that wages violence in the name of abstract notions such as liberty and world peace and that he reveals to be deeply rooted in biblical notions. A work of extraordinary breadth, Holy War, Martyrdom, and Terror connects the ancient past to the troubled present, showing how religious ideals of sacrifice and purification made violence meaningful throughout history.