Blasphemy is the battleground where religious and secular worlds come into conflict. It has a history which reaches into issues of religious belief, freedom of expression, and is bound up with the growth and development of new media. This title draws together a variety of primary sources relating to blasphemy from the Enlightenment onwards.

This fascinating study analyzes the evolution of libel law in Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, in the crucible of conflicts over democratic institution-building, gender roles, slavery and other religious and social reform movements. It demonstrates how individuals shaped the law, as they navigated societal change and fought with their neighbors.

Tracing the subject from the Middle Ages to the present, David Nash outlines the history of blasphemy as a concept - from a species of heresy to modern understandings of it as a crime against the sacred and individual religious identity. Investigating its appearance in speech, literature, popular publishing and the cinema, he disinters the likely motives and agendas of blasphemers themselves, as well as offering a glimpse of blasphemy's victims. In particular, he seeks to understand why this seemingly medieval offence has reappeared to become a distinctly modern presence in the West.