The Rise of Organised Brutality
A Historical Sociology of Violence

This book challenges the prevailing orthodoxy that sees organised violence as in continuous decline, arguing instead that evidence shows that it continues to rise.

Siniša Maleševi? (Author)

9781107479494, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 April 2017

346 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.49 kg

'The book is an excellent example of an insightful historical sociological analysis that highlights the need for further empirical research of organised violence.' Andrej Cveti?, Journal of Regional Security

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. Maleševi? 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. Maleševi? 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.

Subject Areas: International relations [JPS], Sociology [JHB], General & world history [HBG], Peace studies & conflict resolution [GTJ]