Fabio Rambelli is Professor and International Shinto Foundation Chair of Shinto Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, and Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA.Eric Reinders is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion, at Emory University, USA.

• PrefaceAcknowledgments Part I: Stuff: Materiality and Fragility of Dharma 1. Buddhist Objects, Buddhist Bodies-An Outline Part II: Histories: Instances of Religious Destruction in East Asia 2. Iconoclasm and Religious Violence in Japan: Practices and Rationalizations Fabio Rambelli 3. Shattered on the Rock of Ages: Western Iconoclasm and Chinese Modernity Eric Reinders 4. Ways of Not Seeing: Cultural Redefinition and Iconoclasm Part III: Theories: Rethinking the Relations Between the Sacred and Destruction 5. Orders of Destruction: Iconoclasm, Semioclasm, Hieroclasm Conclusion: Destruction and Cultural SystemsNotesBibliography Index

An extremely important publication and a major contribution to Religious Studies, Buddhist Studies, Asian Studies, East Asian History, Art History/Visual Culture, and Cultural Studies. It is precisely the sort of book that many scholars in these fields, and especially those who work across them, have been waiting for. The topic is one of great significance and timeliness, the approach is methodological and theoretically sophisticated, and the authors are sensitive to the cultural and historical specificity of their cases as well as to the wider implications of their work for the comparative analysis of iconoclasm, religion, and violence.