- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Columbia University Press; 1st Edition edition (6 Mar 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0231118767
- ISBN-13: 978-0231118767
- Product Dimensions: 2.4 x 1.6 x 0.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 131,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
Provides a thorough and careful history of blasphemy and of the 'mentalities' behind it. -- Melissa Mohr, Stanford University 17th Century News Cabantous' work represents a significant contribution to the understanding of impious speech as a reflection of more general shifts in European thought and culture. American Historical Review Cabantous brings formidable analytical powers to bear on a mass of documentation over five centuries, and his insights into the evolving relationship between church and civil government, and between various classes and groups within society, are acute and persuasive. The Baltimore Sun This book brings together many interesting reflections on the idea of unacceptable speech in early modern and Revolutionary France with parallel examples from other European countries. Times Literary Supplement Cabantous's control over the French primary sources and European-wide secondary sources is masterly and his analysis meticulous. His focus on showing regional and temporal variation is admirable... The cry against God -- whether it emerged from anti-clericalism or atheism -- presents an avenue for historical intervention that Cabantous invites. -- Lisa Z. Sigel Journal of Social History Cabantous provides a revealing look at the cultural roles that blasphemy played in Western societies during the early modern era... [and] outlines a provocative and stimulating if not yet definitive interpretation of blasphemy as a culturally specific and still relevant phenomenon. -- Sandra M. Gustafson Journal of Religion Perhaps the biggest compliment is a recurring thought of 'why hasn't this been written before?' -- Tom Webster Reformation vol. 9 2004
Product Description
Our world is steeped in attitudes and concepts derived from a sacred worldview, and this book helps us understand why. Alain Cabantous shows that blasphemy is a battlefield where religious dogma and secular rule clash, with their respective agents (the priest and the judge) competing for the proper reaction to a variety of curses. The book takes us on a journey through the Christian West with braggarts, craftsmen, soldiers, sailors, and their coarse, forbidden exchanges. More than simply an exhaustive inventory of the uses of and bans on blasphemy, the book is a lively analysis of the relationship between the blasphemer, the machinery of language, and that of repression. Beginning with a review of acts and crimes of blasphemy in biblical times, including the second commandment's injunction against taking God's name in vain, Cabantous reviews the close relationship between religious authority and royal authority in the sixteenth century, when the king ruled by divine right and attacks against God were implicit attacks on the nature of kingship. Punishing blasphemy was a way for the king to rule as God's representative and an occasion for the church to take control of language. The narrative continues with an exploration of acts of blasphemy, as well as related acts of desecration and profanation, which were regarded as civil and religious offenses up to the French Revolution of 1789 and afterward. The book then explores blasphemy through the mid-nineteenth century, when Catholic opponents of the French Revolution claimed that revolution itself was a blasphemy and a profanation.
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