Pieter Spierenburg – författare

Has violence changed over the centuries? Has it always held the same meanings for us?

Will it always be a given in society?

Taking the sociocultural long view, Violence in Europe analyzes the prevalence and role of violence – from street crime to terrorist attacks, homicide to genocide – in the evolution of human and national behaviour. The editors and 14 colleagues in history, anthropology, sociology, and psychology focus on Northern and Western Europe, examining centuries of violent phenomena, from the cultural logic of the Middle Ages to today’s soccer riots and security alerts. The contributors’ examination of social constructions (honour codes, class and gender roles) and public ambivalence (acceptance, abhorrence, fascination) regarding violence sheds needed light on current dynamics in law enforcement, political systems, and what many have termed "the civilization of violence."

Findings from Britain, France, Ireland, Belgium, and Scandinavia explore: The paradoxes of ethnic violence and insider/outsider thinking in an increasingly multicultural world - Trends in interpersonal violence during wartime and peacetime - The gendering of violence, from early French marital laws to London’s underground nightlife - The growth of cities: modernization, conflict, aggression - Modern prevention and surveillance strategies: effective solutions, complicating the problem, or some middle ground?

Reflecting innovative methods of research and interpretation, Violence in Europe is thought-provoking and instructive for researchers and students in psychology and criminology. And with the mounting global presence of violence today, this is reading with profound implications for the future.

In this original and compelling contribution, Spierenburg sheds new light on several important themes. He looks, for example, at the transformation of homicide from a private matter, followed by revenge or reconciliation, into a public crime, always subject to state intervention. Combining statistical data with a cultural approach, he demonstrates the crucial role gender played in the spiritualisation of male honour and the subsequent reduction of male-on-male aggression, as well as offering a comparative view of how different social classes practised and reacted to violence.

This authoritative study will be of great value to students and scholars of the history of crime and violence, criminology and the sociology of violence. At a time when murder rates are rising and public fears about violent crime are escalating, this book will also interest the general reader intrigued by how our relationship with murder reached this point.

This innovative book tells the fascinating tale of the long histories of violence, punishment, and the human body, and how they are all connected. Taking the decline of violence and the transformation of punishment as its guiding themes, the book highlights key dynamics of historical and social change, and charts how a refinement and civilizing of manners, and new forms of celebration and festival, accompanied the decline of violence.

Pieter Spierenburg, a leading figure in historical criminology, skillfully extends his view over three continents, back to the middle ages and even beyond to the Stone Age. Ranging along the way from murder to etiquette, from social control to popular culture, from religion to death, and from honor to prisons, every chapter creatively uses the theories of Norbert Elias, while also engaging with the work of Foucault and Durkheim.

The scope and rigor of the analysis will strongly interest scholars of criminology, history, and sociology, while the accessible style and the intriguing stories on which the book builds will appeal to anyone interested in the history of violence and punishment in civilization.