Description
Book SynopsisIn recent years religion has resurfaced amongst academics, in many ways replacing class as the key to understanding Europe''s historical development. This has resulted in an explosion of studies revisiting issues of religious change, confessional violence and holy war during the early modern period. But the interpretation of the European wars of religion still remains largely defined by national boundaries, tied to specific processes of state building as well as nation building. In order to more thoroughly interrogate these concepts and assumptions, this volume focusses on terms repeatedly used and misused in public debates such as religious violence and holy warfare within the context of military conflicts commonly labelled religious wars. The chapters not only focus on the role of religion, but also on the emerging state as a driver of the escalation of violence in the so-called age of religious war. By using different methodological and theoretical approaches historians, philosopher
Table of ContentsContents
Introduction
Wolfgang Palaver, Harriet Rudolph, and Dietmar Regensburger
Part I Historical Approaches
1 Religion and Violence in the Hussite Wars
Pavel Soukup
2 Religion, War, and Violence in the Swiss Confederation
Thomas Lau
3 Were the French Wars of Religion Really Wars of Religion?
Philip Benedict
4 Religious Wars in the Holy Roman Empire? From the Schmalkaldic War to the Thirty Years War
Harriet Rudolph
5 England’s Wars of Religion: A Reassessment
Charles W. A. Prior
6 Justifying Force in Early Modern Doctrines on Self-defence and Resistance
Luise Schorn-Schütte
Part II Approaches from Philosophy and Theology
7 Secularization of the Holy: A Reading of the ‘Wars of Religion’
William T. Cavanaugh
8 The Modern State or the Myth of ‘Political Violence’
Paul Dumouchel
9 The Modern Military–Humanitarian Hybrid State: A Response to Paul Dumouchel
Bruce Ward
10 Confessional Wars and Religious Violence in Christianity from a Theological Viewpoint
Ralf Miggelbrink
11 Religion and Violence: The Case of Wars in the Former Yugoslavia
Janez Juhant
12 The Debate About the European Wars of Religion as a Challenge to Interdisciplinary Cooperation
Wolfgang Palaver
Index
