A history of violence : from the end of the Middle Ages to the present
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
A history of violence : from the end of the Middle Ages to the present
Polity, c2012
- : hardcover
- : pbk
- Other Title
-
Une histoire de la violence
Available at 9 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Violence is so much in the news today that we may find it hard to believe that it is less prevalent than it was in the past. But this is exactly what the distinguished historian Robert Muchembled argues in this major new work on the history of violence. He shows that brutality and homicide have been in decline since the thirteenth century. The thesis of a 'civilizing process', of a gradual taming, even sublimation, of violence, seems, therefore, to be well-founded.
How are we to explain this decline in public displays of aggression? What mechanisms have modernizing societies employed to repress and control violence? The increasingly strict social control of unmarried, male adolescents, together with the coercive education imposed on this age group, are central to Muchembled's explanation. Masculine violence gradually disappeared from public space, to become concentrated in the home. Meanwhile, a vast popular literature, precursor of the modern mass media, came to play a cathartic role: the duels of The Three Musketeers and the amazing exploits of Fantomas, as described in the new crime literature invented in the nineteenth century, now helped to purge the violent impulses.
And yet we seem, in the first few years of the twenty-first century, to be witnessing a resurgence of violence, especially among the youths of the inner cities. How should we understand this resurgence in relation to the long history of violence in the West?
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. What is violence?
Is violence innate?
Violence and manliness
Semen and blood: a history of honour
Chapter 2. Violence: seven centuries of spectacular decline
The reliability of the crime figures
Seven centuries of decline
The 'making' of young men
Chapter 3. The youth festivals of violence (thirteenth to seventeenth centuries)
A culture of violence
Violent festivities and brutal games
Youth violence
Chapter 4. The urban peace at the end of the Middle Ages
The pacificatory towns
Controlling the young
Violence costs dear
Chapter 5. Cain and Medea. Homicide and the construction of sexed genders (1500-1650)
A judicial revolution
In pursuit of the ungrateful son: the spread of the blood taboo
Medea, the guilty mother
Chapter 6. The noble duel and popular revolt. The metamorphoses of violence
The duel, a French exception
Noble youths sharpen their swords
Popular violence and the frustrations of youth
Chapter 7. Violence tamed (1650-1960)
Murder forbidden
The civilizing town
Violence and changing concepts of honour in the countryside
Chapter 8. Mortal thrills and crime fiction (sixteenth to twentieth centuries)
The devil, assuredly & The birth of the crime fiction
From blood-thirsty murderer to well-loved bandit
Blood and ink
Chapter 9. The return of the gangs. Contemporary adolescence and violence
Death in paradise
Juvenile delinquency
'Rebel without a cause', or 'eternal recurrence'
Is the end of violence possible?
by "Nielsen BookData"