Description
Book SynopsisIn Religion on the Battlefield, Hassner focuses on the everyday practice of religion in a military context: the prayers, rituals, fasts, and feasts of the religious practitioners who populate the battlefields of modern wars.
Trade ReviewHassner's Religion on the Battlefield offers a welcome contribution to the body of literature on religion and conflict.... What sets Hassner's work apart is that it is much less focused on why actors internalize religious ideas and identitiesand more on what they actually do with these ideas.... Religion on the Battlefield should be considered a must-read work.
-- Dr. Magdalena Delgado * St. Anthony’s International Review *
This short but thoughtful book invites readers to reconsider their ideas about the role of religion in war. Ever since the 9/11 attacks, the intersection of religion and organized violence has been understood in ideological terms, with a focus on extremism; unsurprisingly, Islam has attracted most attention of this kind. Hassner wants readers to instead think of religion as a set of practices that appear in a variety of forms but have something to do with the sacred—and serve as sources of motivation and inhibition and also exploitation and provocation.
-- Lawrence D. Freedman * Foreign Affairs *
Finely crafted and timely monograph.... Hasner has produced a thoughful and interesting survey that is of immediate political and strategic importance.
* International Affairs *
As a former Marine and combat veteran, I was pleased by Hassner's ability to bring up the complexities of religion on the battlefield.... Overall, this book is a wonderful introduction to the complexities of religion and war. It uses historical examples alongside theoretical analysis to show that religion is a far-reaching and important topic in the study of war.
* Reading Religion *
Hassner makes significant strides in both description and prescription.
* Journal of Church and State *
Table of Contents1. Why? Religion as a Cause of War
2. When? Sacred Time and War
3. Where? Sacred Space and War
4. Who? Sacred Leaders and War
5. How? Sacred Rituals and War
6. Religion on the Battlefield in Iraq, 2003–2009
