Blood Sacrifice and the Nation

A groundbreaking study of American patriotism and the symbolic power of the national flag.

American patriotism is a civil religion organized around a sacred flag. Its citizens periodically sacrifice their children to unify the group. Using an anthropological approach, this groundbreaking study explains the rituals of American nationalism, and analyses the malaise pervading post-war American society.This compelling book argues that American patriotism is a civil religion of blood sacrifice, which periodically kills its children to keep the group together. The flag is the sacred object of this religion; its sacrificial imperative is a secret which the group keeps from itself to survive. Expanding Durkheim's theory of the totem taboo as the organizing principle of enduring groups, Carolyn Marvin uncovers the system of sacrifice and regeneration which constitutes American nationalism, shows why historical instances of these rituals succeed or fail in unifying the group, and explains how mass media are essential to the process. American culture is depicted as ritually structured by a fertile center and sacrificial borders of death. Violence plays a key part in its identity. In essence, nationalism is neither quaint historical residue nor atavistic extremism, but a living tradition which defines American life.