David Nash's new study focuses on the development of blasphemy in the Christian world. Tracing the subject from the Middle Ages to the present, he outlines the history of blasphemy as a concept, from a species of heresy to modern understandings of it as a crime against the sacred and individual religious identity. David Nash is the world's foremost commentator on the history of blasphemy. This astute, readable survey of the illuminating ironies of the subject deserves to become a classic. He ably and colourfully demonstrates the cynical and sincere use made of the notion of blasphemy by the very bad and the well-meaning. He points up the crucial political lessons to be learned, but never rams them down the reader's throat. This book will fascinate all interested in the uneasy relationship between state authority and individual freedom.