Violence : a very short introduction / Philip Dwyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dwyer, Philip G., author.

Series:

Very short introductions.

Very short introductions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Violence.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2022.

Summary:

This Very Short Introduction examines the more visible, physical acts of violence - interpersonal, gendered, collective, religious, sexual, criminal, and political - in the modern world. It explores how violence in the pre-modern world was different from the modern world, and what is significant about those differences. It also discusses what violence is by examining understandings of the ideas, values, and cultural practices embedded in an act of violence, and considering acts of violence as the outcome of a process dependent on the cultural context in which they take place. Along the way Dwyer considers some core questions, asking whether violence is always 'bad', and if there are any limits to human violence? Why is it that what was once considered acceptable - wife beating, duelling, slavery - at some point becomes unacceptable in some societies and cultures, and yet continues in others? And finally, are we becoming more or less violent?

Contents:

1. Thinking about violence

2. How violent was the past?

3. Intimate and gendered violence

4. Interpersonal violence

5. The sacred and the secular

6. Collective violence

7. Violence and the state

8. The changing nature of violence.

ISBN:

0-19-256760-8

0-19-256759-4

0-19-186959-7