A trenchant analysis of sacrifice as the foundation of the modern, as well as the ancient, social order

The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire and condescended to as destructive and archaic abnegation. But even in the Old Testament, the dual natures of sacrifice, embodying both ritual slaughter and moral rectitude, were at odds. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood.

Pursuing the complex lineage of sacrifice in a lyrical discourse, Eagleton focuses on the Old and New Testaments, offering a virtuosic analysis of the crucifixion, while drawing together a host of philosophers, theologians, and texts—from Hegel, Nietzsche, and Derrida to the Aeneid and The Wings of the Dove. Brilliant meditations on death and eros, Shakespeare and St. Paul, irony and hybridity explore the meaning of sacrifice in modernity, casting off misperceptions of barbarity to reconnect the radical idea to politics and revolution.
Terry Eagleton is Distinguished Visiting Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University and the author of more than fifty books in the fields of literary theory, postmodernism, politics, ideology, and religion.

Here are the lives of famous figures, such as Aristotle, Carl Linnaeus, Joseph Banks and Georges Cuvier, who established the concept of extinction. Intrepid naturalists such as Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin changed the course of science with their daring travels and groundbreaking theories which challenged the accepted ideas and beliefs of their day.

Others, less well known, are now given their rightful place –
Ulisse Aldrovandi, the first director of a natural history museum; Antony van Leeuwenhoek, who discovered bacteria with microscopes he made himself; Nicolaus Steno, who opened the door to the Earth’s geological past; and Mary Anning, ‘the princess of palaeontology’, who had an amazing talent for finding fossils.

The book is illustrated with breathtakingly beautiful and precise paintings and drawings of birds, animals, fossils, fish, shells and geology, the majority selected from the unparalleled picture archives and collections of the Natural History Museum, London.

Robert Huxley is Head of Collections in the Botany Department of the Natural History Museum, London. He is a board member of the North America-based Natural Sciences Collections Alliance and past President of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections.