Sacred Violence
Torture, Terror, and Sovereignty
Format:Paperback
Publisher:The University of Michigan Press
Published:4th Aug '08
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In Sacred Violence, the distinguished political and legal theorist Paul W. Kahn investigates the reasons for the resort to violence characteristic of premodern states. In a startling argument, he contends that law will never offer an adequate account of political violence. Instead, we must turn to political theology, which reveals that torture and terror are, essentially, forms of sacrifice. Kahn forces us to acknowledge what we don't want to see: that we remain deeply committed to a violent politics beyond law.
Paul W. Kahn is Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities at Yale Law School and Director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights.
Cover Illustration: "Abu Ghraib 67, 2005" by Fernando Botero. Courtesy of the artist and the American University Museum.
An extended meditation on the contemporary debate about torture and terrorism that forces the reader to grapple with troubling issues that we would prefer to ignore. - Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School
ISBN: 9780472050475
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
248 pages