A slim but densely packed volume for serious scholars of the Bible, featuring a sometimes distracting array of references to philosophers, historians, anthropologists and linguistic experts, and almost impossible to encapsulate in a short review. The author concentrates on Joshua 11, which enables him to take a somewhat narrow view of apparent God-ordained violence. In this chapter God’s only specific mandate of destruction is against ‘chariots and horses’ – instruments of power and oppression used by the totalitarian, hierarchical and monopolistic local system of government against the ‘anti-monarchic peasant movement’ that was Israel at the time. The wholesale slaughter of the people was the response of the Israelites themselves. Thus God is ‘a relentless opponent of human oppression’ – a God of justice and freedom, not necessarily advocating ethnic cleansing, but inscrutably aligned against communities of domination ‘working through hardness of heart until the whole enterprise collapses’ – a conclusion difficult to dispute while considering the current state of the world.