He credited Girard with providing interesting discussions of Biblical stories, Greek myths and rituals, taboos, and the fears aroused by twins. He believed that Girard's treatment of Freud, of anthropology, and of linguistic data, would lead to critical reactions. He identified it as part of a trend toward interdisciplinary studies in France, and wrote that it provoked many reactions and that Esprit devoted a large part of an issue to it. Brombert described the book as 'fascinating and ambitious', and important. Īccording to Chris Fleming, de Radkowski considered the book an 'enormous intellectual achievement' in that it provided the 'first authentically atheistic theory of religion and the sacred'. Rexine in The Modern Language Journal, and James A. The book received mixed reviews from Homer Obred Brown in Modern Language Notes, Winifred Lambrecht in Library Journal, John E. de Radkowski in Le Monde, the critic Victor Brombert in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Frank McConnell in The New Republic, and Vincent Farenga in Comparative Literature. Violence and the Sacred received positive reviews from G. It became a highly influential book in anthropology, literary criticism, and even Christology.

Girard was awarded the Prix de l'Académie française for Violence and the Sacred, which is considered his major work. It was also published by The Athlone Press in 1988 and Continuum in 2005. In 1977, Johns Hopkins University Press published an English translation by Patrick Gregory. The book was first published in French in 1972 by Editions Bernard Grasset. Violence and the Sacred was written while Girard was distinguished professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and resulted from a decade of research. He also discusses the work of the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. He also reevaluates Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex, and the incest taboo. He writes that while Totem and Taboo has been widely rejected, he views the work differently and sees its concept of collective murder as close to the themes of his own work. He reevaluates Totem and Taboo (1913), a work by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis. Among modern thinkers, he reviews the theories of the sociologist Henri Hubert and the anthropologist Marcel Mauss and discusses the work of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the intellectual Georges Bataille.

Aspects of Greek culture he explores include Greek tragedy, Ancient Greek religion, and the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. He explores the concept of the 'sacrificial crisis' and the role of the scapegoat. Girard discusses the ritual role of sacrifice, seeking to explain the fact that it sometimes appears as 'a sacred obligation to be neglected at grave peril' and it other times as 'a sort of criminal activity entailing perils of equal gravity'.

Homo Necans by Walter Burkert