This study extends some of the arguments presented in my previous book, The Prince of This World, and to that extent could be understood as a sequel or follow-up. At the same time, it does not presuppose any knowledge of its predecessor—a fact that I verified empirically by presenting the basic argument put forward here in a series of lectures prior to the publication of that work. I would like to thank the following people for the generous speaking invitations that made it possible for me to develop these ideas: Joel Crombez (University of Tennessee at Knoxville), Monique Rooney (Australian National University), Julian Murphet (University of New South Wales), Robyn Horner and David Newheiser (Australian Catholic University), Bryan Cook and Catherine Ryan (Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy), Mike Grimshaw and Cindy Zeiher (Canterbury University), Campbell Jones (Auckland University), Harold Stone (Shimer College), Jared Rodríguez and Matthew Smith (Northwestern University), and Colby Dickinson (Loyola University Chicago). In addition to my hosts, many other interlocutors have pushed my thinking on this project. Among those not already named, I would like to highlight the contributions of Virgil Brower, Peter Hallward, Ted Jennings, Anna Kornbluh, James Martel, Knox Peden, and especially Marika Rose, who generously read and provided detailed comments on the entire manuscript. I am grateful, as well, to Emily-Jane Cohen of Stanford University Press for her support of this project. Finally, I must express my gratitude to Natalie Scoles, not only for her support and companionship, but for the prescient suggestion that I should teach my first elective course on the devil—setting in train the intellectual journey that has led to this book. In this, as in so many other cases, she knew me better than I knew myself.