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Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

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Girard is a man whose breadth of vision takes in the history of mankind from the time the first collection of homanoids became conscious of themselves as separate from other animals, through our development as religious and cultural beings, up to our present secular (sometimes)nihilistic time. He hints at a future where mankind can develop into a fuller, more peaceful humanity.

I highly recomend this book to anyone who is interested in what it means to be human.

A profound and well-documented book about the origin of religion, its meaning and use in society and causes for the declining interest in religion in our time. The system Girard explained at its best, but not as readable as some of his other books on the subject.

This book takes the form of a dialogue between Girard and two psychiatrists, Jean-Michel Oughourlian and Guy Defort. If you are already familiar with Girard's work concerning the relationship between mimetic desire and violence, sacrificial rites and scapegoat, then you will find this book indispensible. If you have an opinion -- pro or con -- about Christianity, you will want to read this book. The title of the book is a quote from Mathew 13, 35, and not without purpose. Here, Girard discusses in depth the nature of Christianity, the most sacrificial religion, in terms of the theories he's been formulating over the years. The whole business of murder and deification permeates much of primitive Mediterranean religions -- Abel and Cain, Romulus and Remus, etc -- and the sacrifice of Christ and subsequent deification follows the same pattern of displacing mob guilt. Biblical exegesis, certainly, but much more than that. This book and Girard's work as a whole helps one to understand above and beyond the question of either sentiment or faith why Christianity as a religion still holds sway in this secular age, and from where it derives its staying power. A real milestone in intellectual detective work, it will cause you to hear a wake-up call. And in stereo, too, if you read also his good friend Michel Serres' book ROME: The Book of Foundations.

It has been now about 20 years since I first read the original version of this fascinating work, as it was published in France. Reading it again today I still have the same feeling of witnessing a major breakthrough in our understanding of thelink between human nature, civilization and religion, a landmark of the highest caliber. Only now can I detect its influence in the French intellectual establishment - the 70s being not very favorable to a work that sheds an unexpectedly new and enhancing light on Christianity (yet certainly more unsettling for the religious establishment, I believe.) As a scientific, I was striken at first by the simplicity and the precision of the mimetic theory and its startling ramifications into the phenomenons of victimization mechanisms, sacralization, religion and foundations of civilization - all of it displaying a clarity and logic that I was more accustomed to find in "hard" sciences, I must say... I advise newcomers to Girard to start with this book which is the most synthetic. A must read for all modern westerners.