The Rise of Organised Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence
Cambridge University Press, 4/3/2017
EAN 9781107479494, ISBN10: 1107479495
Paperback, 346 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Challenging the prevailing belief that organised violence is experiencing historically continuous decline, this book provides an in-depth sociological analysis that shows organised violence is, in fact, on the rise. Malešević demonstrates that violence is determined by organisational capacity, ideological penetration and micro-solidarity, rather than biological tendencies, meaning that despite pre-modern societies being exposed to spectacles of cruelty and torture, such societies had no organisational means to systematically slaughter millions of individuals. Malešević suggests that violence should not be analysed as just an event or process, but also via changing perceptions of those events and processes, and by linking this to broader social transformations on the inter-polity and inter-group levels he makes his key argument that organised violence has proliferated. Focusing on wars, revolutions, genocides and terrorism, this book shows how modern social organisations utilise ideology and micro-solidarity to mobilise public support for mass scale violence.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
the faces of violence
1. What is organised violence?
2. Violence in the long run
3. How old is human brutality?
4. The rise and rise of organised violence
5. Warfare
6. Revolutions
7. Genocides
8. Terrorisms
9. Why humans fight?
Conclusion
the future of organised violence
References
Index.