Read more
"Arnaud Blin's book is a seminal contribution to the history of conflicts and the lasting impact of religions on politics through history and civilizations. It sheds new light on a very important topic with clarity and draws a superb panorama of the past two millenium without ideological bias."—Gérard Chaliand, A Global History of War: From Assyria to the Twenty-First Century
"This book provides an impressive historical sweep that covers the entire range of Christianity and Islam. In provocative and engaging ways, it explores the problematic relationship between religion and war and challenges our understanding of both. Daring and controversial, this book will be much debated and long discussed."—Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Chronology
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Rise of the Monotheistic Religions
2. Christianity Becomes a State Religion
3. The Emergence of Islam
4. Toward a Clash of Civilizations
5. The Middle Eastern Crusades
6. The Crusading Spirit Lives On
7. From Holy War to All-Out Religious War
8. In the Name of God: Religious Warfare in Europe, 1524–1700
9. Religious Violence in a Secular World
Epilogue: Of Gods and Men
Notes
Suggested Readings
Index
About the author
Arnaud Blin is a French-American historian and biographer. His works are widely translated, and he is the author, coauthor, or editor of many on the history of conflict, including The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to ISIS. Blin is a Research Associate with the French Institute for Strategic Analysis (Paris). He lives in upstate New York.
Summary
The resurgence of violent terrorist organizations claiming to act in the name of God has rekindled dramatic public debate about the connection between violence and religion and its history.
Offering a panoramic view of the tangled history of war and religion throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, War and Religion takes a hard look at the tumultuous history of war in its relationship to religion. Arnaud Blin examines how this relationship began through the concurrent emergence of the Mediterranean empires and the great monotheistic faiths. Moving through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and into the modern era, Blin concludes with why the link between violence and religion endures. For each time period, Blin shows how religion not only fueled a great number of conflicts but also defined the manner in which wars were conducted and fought.
