Customer Reviews

Violence and the Sacred

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Those who read contemporary French criticism will understand where Kristeva and others culled their best insights. Girard shows how violence both generates and destroys cultural order. Religious attempts to curtail violence, and modern secularists remain more ignorant than ever of the "virus" of violence, which they displace onto the secondary realm of sexuality. Girard is most brilliant when revealing how myths occlude persecution, scapegoating, and surrogate victimization. Essential reading for feminists as Girard indirectly reveals that women (via Freud) have become the surrogate victims du jour of man's power to evade confronation with his own violence.

No one but Rene Girard could touch upon the deepest human drive and emotion as Girard does. This work is possibly his greatest thus far and is certainly destined to be a classic. The book is of imeasurable value to anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and theologans all at the same time. I highly recommend this book to anyone that seeks to understand this imporant aspect of human nature.

This book was an unexpected pleasure. Mythology and cultural anthropology have always been of interest to me, but Girard's scintillating and illuminating ideas, in my opinion, blast through the ubiquitious shadows which cling to and obscure our broader vision. I loved it -- not because of the often revolting realities of human nature which it illuminates, but because of it's unswerving quest for truth. Great!