The Subject of Violence: The Song of Roland and the Birth of the State

This book provides the reader with a new, challenging, and sophisticated critical analysis of the Song of Roland. -Choice

[Haidu’s] close reading of the Song of Roland is interesting, informative, and significant …
-American Historical Review

Probably the most sophisticated book ever written on the Song of Roland… . It is at once a work of linguistic analysis, of literary theory, of literary history, and, finally, of history. -R. Howard Bloch

Haidu argues that the 12th-century Song of Roland played an essential role in the creation of the nation-state, in that the narrative transforms the independent and violent warriors of the feudal period into the subordinate instruments of the nation-state by enforcing on them the subjection to the rule of monarchy.