René Girard (1923-) was Professor of French Language, Literature and Civilization at Stanford Unviersity from 1981 until his retirement in 1995. Violence and the Sacred is Girard's brilliant study of human evil. Girard explores violence as it is represented and occurs throughout history, literature and myth. Girard's forceful and thought-provoking analyses of Biblical narrative, Greek tragedy and the lynchings and pogroms propagated by contemporary states illustrate his central argument that violence belongs to everyone and is at the heart of the sacred. Translated by Patrick Gregory>

"His fascinating and ambitious book provides a fully developed theory of violence as the 'heart and secret soul' of the sacred. Girard's fertile, combative mind links myth to prophetic writing, primitive religions to classical tragedy."--Victor Brombert, Chronicle of Higher Education.

His fascinating and ambitious book provides a fully developed theory of violence as the 'heart and secret soul' of the sacred. Girard's fertile, combative mind links myth to prophetic writing, primitive religions to classical tragedy.

This book is primarily for researchers and students in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. The volume results from intense interaction between archaeologists at these sites and a group of theorists studying the scholarship of René Girard.

Employs the sectarian battles which divided African Christians in late antiquity to explore the nature of violence in religious conflicts.

This text explains what religious terrorists and religious peacemakers share in common and what causes them to take different paths in fighting injustice.