Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence

528 Pages·2014·7.55 MB·English

by  Karen Armstrong

Praise for Karen Annstrong's
Fields of Blood
"Elegant and powerful. ... Erudite and accurate, dazzling in its
breadth of knowledge and historical detail. ... Armstrong has
done a great service by showing us how wrong some of the sim
plistic assumptions have been. But she also makes us aware of
how much more there is to be known about the awesome dimen
sion of religion in public life." -The Washington Post
"A compelling examination of the true forces underlying religious
violence." -The Huffington Post
"Written in a lucid and fleet prose .... [Armstrong is] one of the
keenest minds working on understanding the role religion plays
in cultures around the globe." -Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Panoramic work .... Enjoyable and informative." -Salon
"A valuable, readable rebuttal of a pernicious contemporary
myth .... Armstrong goes through the centuries and assorted
cultures to demonstrate again and again how religious principles
and religious leaders were co-opted to support warfare."
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"A tour-de-force of the history of the world's major religions ....
Fields of Blood is thought-provoking as it examines one of the
more fascinating elements of human civilization."
-Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Armstrong is doing us a great service .... We feel we are in the
hands of an expert." -The Guardian (London)
"Riveting. ... [A] mighty offering. Armstrong is one of our most
erudite expositors of religion." -The Observer (London)
"Provocative and supremely readable .... Bracing as ever, [Arm
strong] sweeps through religious history around the globe and
over 4,000 years to explain the yoking of religion and violence
and to elucidate the ways in which religion has also been used to
counter violence." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Epic in scale .... A comprehensive and erudite study of the his
tory of violence in relation to religion .... An intriguing read,
useful resource and definitive voice in defense of the divine in
human culture." -Kirkus Reviews {starred review)
"A well-written historical summary of what have traditionally
been viewed as 'religious' wars, showing convincingly that in
pretty much all cases it was not so much religion as it was politi
cal issues that fueled the conflict."
-Library journal (starred review)
"Armstrong again impresses with the breadth of her knowledge
and the skill with which she conveys it to us."
-Booklist (starred review)
Karen Armstrong
Fields of Blood
Karen Armstrong is the author of numerous books on reli
gion, including The Case for God, A History of God, The
Battle for God, Holy War, Islam, Buddha, and The Great
Transformation, as well as a memoir, The Spiral Staircase.
Her work has been translated into forty-five languages. In
2.008 she was awarded the TED Prize and began working
with TED on the Charter for Compassion, created online
by the general public, crafted by leading thinkers in Juda
ism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confu
cianism. It was launched globally in the fall of 2009. Also
in 2008, she was awarded the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four
Freedoms Medal. In 2013, she received the British Acad
emy's inaugural Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Transcultural
Understanding.
l\LSO BY Kl\REN l\RMSTRONG
Through the Narrow Gate
A History of God:
The 4,000-Year Quest ofJ udaism,
Christianity and Islam
Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths
Islam: A Short History
Buddha
The Battle for God:
Fundamentalism in Judaism,
Christianity and Islam
The Spiral Staircase
A Short History of Myth
Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time
The Great Transformation:
The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
The Bible: The Biography
The Case for God: What Religion Really Means
Twel11e Steps to a Compassionate Life
Fields of Blood
_..,._
Religion and the History
ofViolence
KAREN ARMSTRONG
ANCHOR BOOKS
A Division of Penguin Random House LLC
New York
For ]ane Garrett
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 2015
Copyright 0 2.014, 2.0IJ by Karen Armstrong
All rights reserved. Published in the United Stares by Anchor Books,
a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in
Great Britain by The Bodley Head, an imprint of the Random House Group
Limited, London, and subsequently published in slightly different form in
hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of
Penguin Random House LLC, New York, in z.01+
Anchor Books and colophon are registered trademarks of
Penguin Random House LLC.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Schocken Books for permission to reprint
an excerpt from The Five Books of Moses, Deluxe Edition with fllustrations:
The Schocken Bible, Volume l by Dr. Everett Fox, copyright 0 1983, 1986,
1990, 1995 by Schocken Books. Reprinted by permission of Schocken Books, an
imprint of the Knopf Doubleday PublishingGroup, a division of
Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Armstrong, Karen, [date]
Fields of blood : religion and the history of violence I Karen Armstrong.
pages cm
1. Violence-Religious aspects. 1. Tide.
llL65.V55A76 2.014
z.01'.7z.---dcz.3 z.014011057
Anchor Books Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-307-94696-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-35310-6
Author photograph Cl Michael Lionstar
Book design by Cassandra ]. Pappas
www.anchorbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
Now Hevel became a shepherd of flocks, and Kayin became
a worker of the soil
But then it was, when they were out in the field
that Kayin rose up against Hevel bis brother
and he killed him.
YHWH said to Kayin:
Where is Hevel your brother?
Hesaid:
I do not know. Am I the watcher of my brother?
Nowhe said:
What have you clone!
Hark-your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil!
-GENESIS 4: :z., 8-ro, translated by Everett Fox

Contents
lntroduction 3
Part One • BEGINNINGS
r. Farmers and Herdsmen 21
2. India: The Noble Path
3. China: Warriors and Gentlemen
4. The Hebrew Dilemma
Part Two • KEEPING THE PEACE
5. Jesus: Not of This World?
6. Byzantium: The Tragedy of Empire
7. The Muslim Dilemma
8. Crusade and Jihad
Part Three • MODERNITY
9. The Arrival of "Religion"
ro. The Triumph of the Secular
II. Religion Fights Back
12. Holy Terror
13. Global Jihad
Afterword 393
Postscript 403
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index