In the Name of Heaven: 3000 Years of Religious Persecution [Hardcover]

Mary Jane Engh (Author), M. J. Engh (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2006

Religion - the source of inspiration, hope, and basic values for most of humanity throughout history - has also been the motive for atrocious persecutions from antiquity to the present. "In the Name of Heaven" is a wide-ranging historical survey of religious persecution encompassing three millennia and a great diversity of cultures world-wide. Defining religious persecution as "repressive actions initiated or condoned by authorities against their own people on religious grounds", author Mary Jane Engh begins with ancient Egypt, followed by the biblical history of Israel with its accounts of divinely ordered genocides and capital punishment for worshipers of other deities. Chapters are devoted to ancient Greece (Socrates, Alcibiades, and Aristotle, among others, clashed with the religious establishment); the Roman Empire (persecutions of Jews, Christians, and Manichaeans, and the later persecution of pagans and heretics by a Christianised Rome); the Islamic Empire (persecutions of polytheists and dissident Muslims); and medieval and Reformation Europe (where Protestants and Catholics persecuted each other and both persecuted heretics). The twenty-two chapters also cover Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific area. In an epilogue Engh reviews the new forms of religious persecution from the 20th century to the present - from major genocides and militant forms of polytheism to persecution of all religion by atheistic governments. Complete with references to further reading, this sobering but factually indisputable survey of religion's dark side enlightens while serving as a warning for the future.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Novelist Engh puts her narrative skills to good use by launching these 22 articles on episodes of religious persecution throughout the world in an attention-grabbing, dramatic manner. "Faecenia Hispala was a lucky woman," opens the chapter on the curious suppression--Rome normally absorbed cults--of Bacchanalia in second century BCE Rome. That is an exceptionally enticing opening; others sound more historical, but popular-historical. Engh maintains reader friendliness as, often covering vast swathes of time remarkably succinctly, she summarizes the persecution of other gods' worship by monotheistic pioneer King Akhenaton in ancient Egypt, then of other tribes' deities by the early Jews, and on through the ages to the French Revolution's anticlerical pogroms, and the campaigns against Mormons and Native American religion in the nineteenth-century U.S. Every chapter concludes with a paragraph or two on Engh's sources and recommendations for further reading. Unlike the historical figures she sketches, Engh herself manifests neither bigotry nor religious partisanship. Given the subject, how could she? Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Mary Jane Engh (Garfield, WA) is the author of three novels, a children’s novel, shorter fiction, articles, and poems. For more than a decade, she has concentrated on historical research and is currently coauthoring a reference work on ancient Roman women.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 261 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (November 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591024544
• ISBN-13: 978-1591024545
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,053,717 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A focus perfect for any collection strong in general religious history., March 4, 2007

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Name of Heaven: 3000 Years of Religious Persecution (Hardcover)

IN THE NAME OF HEAVEN: 3,000 YEARS OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION defines repressive actions used by authorities on their own people on religious grounds, and provides a history of ancient civilizations right up to modern times, moving around the world to cover Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific. Varying methods, purposes, and objectives are contrasted in a focus perfect for any collection strong in general religious history.