The origins of the offense -- The Jewish trial of Jesus -- Christianity transforms blasphemy -- Compelling heretics -- Protestantism rediscovers blasphemy -- The fires of Smithfield -- Socinian anti-Trinitarians -- The Ranters : antinomianism run amok -- The early English Quakers -- Christianity becomes the law of the land -- Early colonial America : Gorton and the Quakers -- America from 1660 to 1800 -- England's Augustan age of toleration -- Blasphemy and obscenity -- The "Age of reason"? -- Eaton to Carlile : deism for the people -- Carlile's shopmen and free expression -- Early American state cases -- England reconsiders the law of blasphemy -- English prosecutions of the 1840s -- Bible burning and a debate revived -- Bradlaugh, Foote, and Coleridge's decency test -- The age of John W. Gott -- The American middle period : 1880-1940 -- Modern America -- The Gay news case -- The Rushdie affair : should all religions be protected or none?