Blasphemy
1993
First Published
4.11
Average Rating
696
Number of Pages
Leonard Levy traces the varied meanings of blasphemy throughout Western law. He argues that while past sanctions against the crime have inhibited all manner of cultural, political, scientific, and literary expression, we also pay a price for our extraordinary expansion of the scope of permissible speech. We have become, he charges, not only a free society but one that is 'numb' to outrage.
Avg Rating
4.11
Number of Ratings
19
5 STARS
42%
4 STARS
37%
3 STARS
16%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
5%
goodreads
Author
Leonard W. Levy
Author · 10 books
Leonard Williams Levy was the Andrew W. Mellon All-Claremont Professor of Humanities and Chairman of the Graduate Faculty of History at Claremont Graduate School, California. He was educated at Columbia University, where his mentor for the Ph.D. degree was Henry Steele Commager. Levy's most honored book was his 1968 study Origins of the Fifth Amendment, focusing on the history of the privilege against self-incrimination. This book was awarded the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for History. He wrote almost forty other books. In 1990, Levy was appointed a Distinguished Scholar in Residence; Adjunct Professor of History and Political Science at Southern Oregon State College in Ashland, Oregon.
