Religion and war from antiquity to early modernity / Irene Polinskaya, Alan James, and Ioannis Papadogiannakis, editors.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Papadogiannakis, Ioannis, editor.

James, Alan, editor.

Polinskai︠a︡, I., editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War--Religious aspects--History.

War.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (513 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

[London, England] : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021

Place of Publication:

London [England] : Bloomsbury Academic, 2022.

Summary:

"Providing a comparative and cross-cultural exploration of the role of religion in war from the second millennium BCE until early modernity, this book focuses on the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean basin, and Europe. The significance of religion and its influence on war has come to the forefront in recent years, either through reports from war-torn Syria or Iraq or of terrorist acts in Western capitals. Yet religion has been at the heart of violent conflict throughout human history, and the new-found urgency for informed, academic debate must recognize this. This book explores the historic link between the conduct of war and the growing complexity of a human society conditioned by the ownership of ideological authority which, in most cases, was religious. Chapters, sourced from experts in a range of disciplines, highlight the sheer complexity of the relationship between religion and war, and the variety of experiences it encompasses. Together, they challenge assumptions about the historical background of this pressing and fundamental historical nexus, and caution against simplistic views of its modern instantiations."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: religion and war - a recurring historical nexus

PART ONE NEAR EAST, EGYPT AND THE HEBREW BIBLE (3000-500 BCE)

2 'The plans of the gods are destroyed': Babylonian doubts about the gods and war

3 The 'holy war' of Eanatum in light of the Early Dynastic Central Babylonian tradition

4 'Let us step for judgement before the Storm God': Hittite 'declarations of war' and the divine

5 How to justify war: the interlocking Hittite and Hebrew genres of treaty and prayer

6 Divine intervention in Egyptian warfare: the New Kingdom

7 The cosmic front: war and its impact on official religion in the Neo-Assyrian Empire ( c . 1000-610 BCE)

8 Their seed is no more: rhetorical strategies of genocide in ancient Egypt and the Hebrew Bible

9 Deuteronomic laws of war

PART TWO CLASSICAL AND LATE ANTIQUITY (500 BCE-700 CE)

10 Divine honours and religious motivations in Greek wars of the Classical period

11 Gods and kings: authority, religion and violence in the Maccabean Revolt

12 Roman commanders without auspices during the last three centuries of the Republic?

13 Pollution, divine anger and political legitimacy in Rome's civil wars

14 Visions of victory: Emperor Constantine and the role of epiphanies in military context

15 The early Christians and war: Tertullian's witness

16 The Persian conquest of Jerusalem (614) and the religious dimension of the 'last great war of antiquity' (603-28)

PART THREE MIDDLE AGES AND EARLY MODERN PERIOD (700-1650)

17 Creating enemies of God: the sacralization of war and the use of takfīr in the medieval Islamic West

18 The role of religion in the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258

19 Battle, divine judgement and strategy in the early years of the Hundred Years' War.

20 Fashioning of Isabella I of Castile as a rear-guard crusader and victor over Nasrid Granada

21 God's warriors in the Most Christian Kingdom: a reconsideration of the French religious wars

22 Protestantism, identity and the mobilization of military force: Huguenot troops in Sweden's Baltic campaigns, 1605-14

23 Religion and war at sea: Grotius, Richelieu and 'just war' in the age of Westphalian states and global empires

PART FOUR A LONGUE DURÉE PERSPECTIVE

24 The military-religious complex: gods, kings and violence since the Ice Age

25 Religion, war and the legitimation of power: another perspective

Afterword Religion and war: the threat to democracy

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9780567697813

0567697819

9780567697790

0567697797

9780567697806

0567697800

OCLC:

1458764018