William T. Cavanaugh and René Girard

Abstract

This article examines the argument of William T. Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence in the light of the mimetic theory of the French-American cultural theorist Rene Girard. Though the two projects are significantly different I argue for their mutual compatibility. Each author is “apologetic” for the Christian revelation, though the presence of theology in “The Myth . . .” is muted or implicit, as in Walter Benjamin’s parable of the puppet and the dwarf. I argue for four areas of specific convergence between Cavanaugh and Girard, arising from a shared Augustinian, “two Cities” suspicion of the state, and their resistance to the secularising marginalisation of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The notion of martyrdom as a “dramatic” performance is a further shared dimension. Finally, I argue that the apparent divergence of their approaches, between an anthropological thesis (Girard’s) and a historical one (Cavanaugh’s) is narrowed when we consider the later work of Girard and its examination of nineteenth century dynamics of escalation in warfare in his last book Battling to the End.     

The William James Foundry 1817–1843: An Exposé of Local Metallurgical Enterprise

Abstract

It is a traditionally held view that slavery retarded industrial enterprises, and as such any form of metallurgical industries/activities, for example, would be alien in a slave society. Recent research has, however, indicated quite clearly the technological capacity of slave societies, noting that technological innovations including technical enterprises were evident in slave societies and thus challenges the 'incompatibility thesis' that slavery retarded economic development.     

William Penn et l’Abbé de Saint-Pierre: Le chaînon manquant

The two most famous peace projects published at the time of Louis XIV are William Penn’sEssay towards the present and future peace of Europe and Castel de Saint-Pierre’sProjet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe, which came out in English in 1693, and that of the abbé de Saint-Pierre, which was published in its completed form in several volumes dating from 1713 to 1716. A French translation of Penn’s book was issued in 1697 at the latest and was privately distributed. Our claim is that Saint-Pierre was in some way involved in that translation and that he was indebted to Penn for many of his ideas.