Blood and Symbols. The History of Human Sacrifice / Oleg Ivik. — Moscow: Alpina Non-Fiction, 2023. — 340 pages. ISBN 978-5-00139-840-0 The book "Blood and Symbols" provides an overview of the tradition of human sacrifice, whose roots go back to ancient times, with numerous echoes in the form of various bloodless rites still preserved today. Readers expecting gruesome blood scenes are warned that the authors minimized descriptions of cruelty. Human sacrifices were not always bloody. In many world religions, for example, there are traditions of dedicating living people to gods, who continued to live and thrive but became "property" or "spouses" of the deity. The authors' aim is to show the connection between human sacrifices and the spiritual and cultural development of human communities; to trace how over thousands of years humanity slowly but surely moved from bloody rituals to spiritual ones. And finally, how the aborted human sacrifice—the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham—became the foundation of three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. UDC 2-53 BBK 86.3-5