"Little did we know ... when the idea of the book first took form, that just over two years later the volume would become a way of celebrating the life of René Girard, who died on November 4, 2015, while this manuscript was in production. Girard leaves an enormous intellectual legacy, which the present volume seeks to honour, interrogate, and keep alive."--Acknowledgments.

Introduction: the power of sacrifice: René Girard and the political / Antonio Cerella -- Aristotle on mimesis and violence: things hidden since the foundation of literary theory / Arata Takeda -- René Girard and Thomas Aquinas on prophecy and the purging of the notion of justice / Paul M. Rogers -- Unlikely twins? Machiavelli and Girard on violence, crisis and the origins of the state / Ernesto Gallo -- René Girard, human nature and political conflict / Kent Enns -- Spinoza, Girard and the possibility of a purely immanent democracy / Stéphane Vinolo -- René Girard's mimetic theory: an "anti-political theology"? / Michael Kirwan -- A "theoretical double"; violence, religion and social order in Schmitt and Girard / Andrea Salvatore -- Mimesis and Sartre's Critique of dialectical reason / Paul Dumouchel -- The sacred and the secular: René Girard and Gianni Vattimo on modernity and violence / Pierpaolo Antonello -- The myth of origin: archaeology and history in the work of Agamben and Girard / Antonio Cerella -- The age of panic: on mimetic post-modernity / Emanuele Antonelli.

What is the relationship between the sacred and the political, transcendence and immanence, religion and violence? And how has this complex relation affected the history of Western political reason? In this volume an international group of scholars explore these questions in light of mimetic theory as formulated by Rene Girard (1923-2015), one of the most original thinkers of our time. From Aristotle and his idea of tragedy, passing through Machiavelli and political modernity, up to contemporary biopolitics, this work provides an indispensable guide to those who want to assess the thorny interconnections of sacrality and politics in Western political thought and follow an unexplored yet critical path from ancient Greece to our post-secular condition. While looking at the past, this volume also seeks to illuminate the future relevance of the sacred/secular divide in the so-called 'age of globalization'.