Central to identity, personal responsibility, economic systems, theology, and the political and military imaginaries, the practice of sacrifice has inspired, disturbed, and abused. iMimesis and Sacrificei brings together scholars from the humanities, military, business, and social sciences to examine the role that sacrifice plays in different present-day settings, from economics to gender relations. brbrInspired by Rene Girard's work, chapters explore i the extent to which the social character of human living makes us mimetic, ii whether mimesis necessarily leads to competitive aggression, iii whether aggression must be defused by aggressive sacrificial rituals-and whether all sacrifice has this aim, and iv the role of the second lesson of the cross as Girard called it, the lesson of self-giving ifori others, in addressing present societal problems. brbrBy investigating sacrifice across this span of arenas and questions yet within one volume, iMimesis and Sacrificei presents a new appr