Tracing the subject from the Middle Ages to the present, David Nash outlines the history of blasphemy as a concept - from a species of heresy to modern understandings of it as a crime against the sacred and individual religious identity. Investigating its appearance in speech, literature, popular publishing and the cinema, he disinters the likely motives and agendas of blasphemers themselves, as well as offering a glimpse of blasphemy's victims. In particular, he seeks to understand why this seemingly medieval offence has reappeared to become a distinctly modern presence in the West.

• 1: The past invades the present - Blasphemy in the contemporary World
• 2: Blasphemy in Words and Pictures - Part One 1500-1800
• 3: Blasphemy in Words and Pictures - Part Two 1800-2000
• 4: Who Were the Blasphemers?
• 5: Controlling the Profane
• 6: Responses to Blasphemy: Victims and Communities
• 7: Last Temptations and Visions of Ecstasy: Blasphemy and Film
• 8: Conclusion