@article{1480040,
      recid = {1480040},
      author = {Pahl, Jon, },
      title = {Empire of Sacrifice : The Religious Origins of American  Violence /},
      pages = {1 online resource},
      abstract = {It is widely recognized that American culture is both  exceptionally religious and exceptionally violent.  Americans participate in religious communities in high  numbers, yet American citizens also own guns at rates far  beyond those of citizens in other industrialized nations.  Since9/11, United States scholars have understandably  discussed religious violence in terms of terrorist acts, a  focus that follows United States policy. Yet, according to  Jon Pahl, to identify religious violence only with  terrorism fails to address the long history of American  violence rooted in religion throughout the country's  history. In essence, Americans have found ways to consider  blessed some very brutal attitudes and behaviors both  domestically and globally.In Empire of Sacrifice, Pahl  explains how both of these distinctive features of American  culture work together by exploring how constructions along  the lines of age, race, and gender have operated to  centralize cultural power across American civil or cultural  religions in ways that don't always appear to be  "religious" at all. Pahl traces the development of these  forms of systemic violence throughout American history,  using evidence from popular culture, including movies such  as Rebel without a Cause and Reefer Madness and works of  literature such as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick  Douglass and The Handmaid's Tale, to illuminate historical  events. Throughout, Pahl focuses an intense light on the  complex and durable interactions between religion and  violence in American history, from Puritan Boston to George  W. Bush's Baghdad.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1480040},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814767627.001.0001},
}