Nationalism Religious Violence and Hate Speech in Nineteenth-Century Western Europe

<p><i>Nationalism Religious Violence and Hate Speech in Nineteenth-Century Western Europe</i> critically analyses the role played by different memories of past religious violence in public debates in nineteenth-century Europe.</p><p>Looking back European societies often did not seek to overcome their differences and create a framework of peaceful coexistence among various religions and denominations but rather more frequently to fuel intra- and inter-religious hatred. Moreover various violent pasts were mobilised to define what and who was intolerant in order to mark the other as intolerant and therefore incompatible with societal values. To examine conflicting memories of violence and hatred this book focuses on commemorations statues publications and public polemics surrounding past religious violence. Three elements serve as a framework to explain the conflictive nature of these memories of intolerance: the age of commemorations the culture wars and the second confessional age. The authors explore cases in France Germany Italy Spain Switzerland the United Kingdom and the Low Countries covering Catholicism Protestantism Anglicanism Islam and Judaism. The book focuses on iconic victims such as Giordano Bruno and Michael Servetus collective massacres and discourses surrounding religious hatred in events such as the Crusades. The cases of religious violence remembered in the nineteenth century span the Middle Ages and the intense period of religious violence known as the confessional age.</p><p>This book will appeal to students and scholars of politics religious tolerance and freedom hate speech nationalism religious history and European history.</p>