Table of Contents

Chapter 1: From Mongols to Mughals: Hindu-Muslim Relations in Medieval India
Chapter 2: Hindu Nationalism, Modernism, and Reverse Orientalism
Chapter 3: Premodern Harmony, Sri Lankan Buddhist Nationalism, and Violence
Chapter 4: Burmese Nationalisms and Religious Violence against Muslims
Chapter 5: Buddhism in Bhutan: From Violent Lamas to Peaceful Kings
Chapter 6: “Compassionate” Violence in Tibet: 1,000 Years of War Magic
Chapter 7: Buddhism and Japanese Nationalism: A Sad Chronicle of Complicity
Chapter 8: Sikhism, the Seduction of Modernism, and the Question of Violence
Chapter 9: Religious Nationalism, Violence, and Taiping Christianity
Chapter 10: Hypotheses on the Reasons for Religious Violence
Chapter 11: The Gospel of Weak Belief, Overcoming the Other, and Constructive Postmodernism

About the Author

Nicholas F. Gier is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Idaho.

Reviews

Thoroughly researched and meticulously argued, The Origins of Religious Violence makes a powerful case that Asian religious traditions—although historically less conducive to violence than their Western counterparts—have their own histories of complicity in warfare and oppression. Nicholas F. Gier provides a compelling and insightful philosophical analysis of why violence occurs in the name of religion, despite the centrality of nonviolence to so many of the world’s religious traditions. This book should quickly become indispensable to college courses and to any serious conversation or reflection on religion and violence.
*Jeffery D. Long*

This is an extremely timely, relevant, if not actually prophetic book as we continue to struggle with the roots and realities of religious violence, religious intolerance, and religious terrorism in our own contemporary world.
*Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University*