Rene Girard is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of French Language, Literature, and Civilization at Stanford University, USA. His many works include Violence and the Sacred, To Double Business Bound and The Scapegoat.

"Rene Girard's work is both a rationally articulated study and a prophetic vision of the hidden origins of culture and the nature of cultural processes. In its enormous, breathtaking scope it suggests the projects of those nineteenth-century intellectual giants (Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) who still cast such long shadows today. By contrast, contemporary criticism seems paltry and faint-hearted." Comparative Literature "...a highly readable talent for analysing and deconstructing myth...original and provocative." Frederic Raphael, Sunday Times "One of the most striking theories of human culture ever presented" Christianity and Literature

• Book I Fundamental Anthropology / 1 The Victimage Mechanism as the Basis of Religion / 2 The Development of Culture and Institutions / 3 The Process of Hominization / 4 Myth: The Invisibility of the Founding Murder / 5 Texts of Persecution / Book II / 1 Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World / 2 A Non-Sacrificial Reading of the Gospel Text / 3 The Sacrificial Reading and Historical Christianity / 4 The Logos of Heraclitus and the Logos of John / Book III / 1 Mimetic Desire / 2 Desire without Object / 3 Mimesis and Sexuality / 4 Psycho-analytic Mythology / 5 Beyond Scandal / To conclude / Notes / Bibliography / Index