Understanding Religious Violence

J.P. Larsson

'...utilizing his own background in the Western philosophical tradition, J.P. Larsson shows that religious violence is part of the language of cultural understanding, and he rightly points to the concept of sacred war as seminal to the social use of violent religious images and ideas...Turning to Gandhi, among other nonviolent religious leaders, he shows how religion can provide a moral dimension in political encounters that leads in a positive direction as well as in a destructive one.' Professor Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California, USA and author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence 'In arguing that we must first understand religious violence 'from the inside' if we want to transform it, this book offers readers challenging insights into why religious conflict is proving so intractable for conventional conflict management. Peter Larsson's suggested remedies are creative and thought-provoking. His book will be of interest to all those who are concerned about this important contemporary topic.' Professor Oliver Ramsbotham, University of Bradford, UK

• Contents: Introduction; Questions/problems: contemporary perspectives; Correlates: illustrative of contemporary perspectives; Prerequisites: philosophical prerequisites for contemporary perspectives; Causation: historical causation of contemporary perspectives; Origins: religious origins of contemporary perspectives; Conclusions: a framework for conflict transformation; Bibliography; Index.