On Violence

From Hannah Arendt, the author of The Origins of Totalitarianism, her influential essay examining the relationship between violence, power, war and politics 'Violence can destroy power; it is utterly incapable of creating it' Why has violence played such a significant role in human history? Written in 1970, with the Holocaust and Hiroshima still fresh in recent memory, war in Vietnam raging and the streets of Europe and America exploding into student protest, Hannah Arendt's seminal work dissects violence in the twentieth century: its nature and causes, its relationship with politics and war, its role in the modern age. Arendt warns against the glamorization of violence by revolutionary causes, and argues that true, lasting power can never grow 'out of the barrel of a gun'. 'Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times' The Nation

An analysis of the nature, causes, and significance of violence in the second half of the twentieth century. Arendt also reexamines the relationship between war, politics, violence, and power. "Incisive, deeply probing, written with clarity and grace, it provides an ideal framework for understanding the turbulence of our times"(Nation). Index.

Madness, Violence, and Power: A Critical Collection disengages from the common forms of discussion about violence related to mental health service users and survivors which position those users or survivors as more likely to enact violence or become victims of violence. Instead, this book seeks to broaden understandings of violence manifest in the lives of mental health service users/survivors, 'push' current considerations to explore the impacts of systems and institutions that manage 'abnormality', and to create and foster space to explore the role of our own communities in justice and accountability dialogues. This critical collection constitutes an integral contribution to critical scholarship on violence and mental illness by addressing a gap in the existing literature by broadening the "violence lens," and inviting an interdisciplinary conversation that is not narrowly biomedical and neuro-scientific.

Using discourses from across the conceptual and geographical board, Toby Miller argues for a different way of understanding violence, one that goes beyond supposedly universal human traits to focus instead on the specificities of history, place, and population as explanations for it. Violence engages these issues in a wide-ranging interdisciplinary form, examining definitions and data, psychology and ideology, gender, nation-states, and the media by covering several foundational questions: how has violence been defined, historically and geographically? has it decreased or increased over time? which regions of the world are the most violent? does violence correlate with economies, political systems, and religions? what is the relationship of gender and violence? what role do the media play? This book is a powerful introduction to the study of violence, ideal for students and researchers across the human sciences, most notably sociology, American and area studies, history, media and communication studies, politics, literature, and cultural studies.

“This comprehensive analysis on abuse committed in the home provides insights at both the micro and macro levels... The book combines legal and social science approaches in a way that makes it essential reading for anyone studying or working on violence-related issues.†Kevät Nousiainen, University of Helsinki, Johanna Niemi-Kiesiläinen, University of Umeå and Anu Pylkkänen, University of Helsinki. “This excellent book offers a timely intervention into debates about violence. Whilst most debates still focus on the spectacular rather than mundane forms of violence, Linda McKie uses a synthesis of legal, sociological and feminist research to show how current debates fail to deal with the violence that underpins our lives.†Prof Beverley Skeggs, University of London. An exciting new addition to the series, this book tackles assumptions surrounding the family as a changing institution and supposed haven from the public sphere of life. It considers families and social change in terms of concepts of power, inequality, gender, generations, sexuality and ethnicity. Some commentators suggest the family is threatened by increasing economic and social uncertainties and an enhanced focus upon the individual. This book provides a resume of these debates, as well as a critical review of the theories of family and social change: Charts social and economic changes and their impact on the family Considers the prevalence and nature of abuse within families Explores the relationship between social theory, families and changing issues in familial relationships Develops a theory of social change and families through a critical and pragmatic stance Key reading for undergraduate students of sociology reading courses such as family, gender, health, criminology and social change.

When women decide what to wear, where to go, how to get there, what time of day to be outdoors, and what affects their sense of security and safety, are they aware that they’re afraid of being sexually assaulted? Violence against women is, on a global scale, so common that some experts consider it a “normal” aspect of women’s experiences—and yet research on the issue is subjective and inconsistent. Women and Violence is a comprehensive look at the issue of violence against women and its many appearances, causes, costs and consequences. Understanding that personal values, beliefs and environment affect an individual’s response to—and acknowledgement of—violence against women, this book addresses topics such as global perspectives on violence, controversies and debates, and social change strategies and activism.

Based on an article in the "New York Review of Books" devoted mainly to refutation of the ideas of Sorel, Pareto, Fanon and others on the use of violence in a democratic system.