"In this impressively learned work Douglas Hedley has two related goals both of which challenge contemporary scholarship. The first and more important is to recover the role of sacrifice in the imagination, not as something purely negative but as a path towards human transformation. This he does in part through his second goal: re-establishing the significance of a largely forgotten figure, Joseph de Maistre. Hedley plausibly argues that, so far from being merely a reactionary thinker, de Maistre offers a profound critique of much Enlightenment and modern thought. Rich in insights, the work challenges numerous contemporary orthodoxies in both philosophy and theology, and at the same time succeeds in defending the continuing relevance of the Platonist tradition. " -- David Brown, FBA, Wardlaw Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture, University of St Andrews, UK
"Sacrifice has, in recent years, become once again the subject of an interdisciplinary, scholarly debate. Dr. Hedley's book will make an important contribution to this debate. Written from a perspective that is consciously theological and consciously Platonic, it argues for the abiding significance of sacrifice as a dimension of human culture. For Dr. Hedley, sacrifice ultimately is the work of human imagination and indispensable from an epistemic, metaphysical, ethical, and religious point of view. Given the tradition of radical critique of sacrifice in both Christian and post-Christian theories, this argument will inevitably be controversial. Yet even those readers who may not be fully persuaded by Dr. Hedley's thesis must be immensely grateful for the wealth of references to past and present thinkers and for the subtle analysis of their ideas that is here put at their disposal." -- Johannes Zachhuber, Reader in Theology, Trinity College, University of Oxford, UKÂ Â
"Douglas Hedley calls on the resources of philosophy, theology, poetry, and art to look into the deep and difficult subject of sacrifice, suffering, and atonement. This is a remarkable, profound, and erudite new study, which no one who wants to think hard about these issues should ignore." --Timothy Chappell, Professor of Philosophy, The Open University, UK.
