Description: Violence has always played a part in the religious imagination, from symbols and myths to legendary battles, from colossal wars to the theater of terrorism. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence surveys intersections between religion and violence throughout history and around the world.
Review Quotes: "The authors of the volume's forty essays, who represent many disciplines including religion, anthropology, sociology, and political science, among others, offer a variety of ways of construing and explaining that relationship in both tradition-specific and cross-cultural contexts. The volume is thus a good resource for teaching as well as for brief introductions to the history of religion and violence in multiple traditions and to theories of religion and violence from multiple disciplines." --Rosemary Kellison, Religious Studies Review
"[A] timely collection that provides a welcome guide to the emerging field of studies in violence and religion. Among only a few such efforts to survey the field as a whole, the book explores religious violence in both the past and present as well as in all its social, psychological, and theological complexities...this diverse volume is certainly well worth picking up, as all involved in such scholarship are sure to find something of pertinent interest."--Journal of Contemporary Religion"The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence is a welcome addition to the burgeoning scholarly literature on the relationship between religion and violence...it should definitely be read by all those interested in the various ways religion has been used to legitimate violence." --Politics, Religion, & Ideology"Quite excellent and easily navigated by specialists and nonspecialists alike." --CHOICE