Civilization of Crime

Along with most of the restof Western culture, has crime itself become more "civilized"?This book exposes as myths the beliefs that society has become more violentthan it has been in the past and that violence is more likely to occurin cities than in rural areas.The product of years of studyby scholars from North America and Europe, The Civilization of Crimeshows that, however violent some large cities may be now, both rural andurban communities in Sweden, Holland, England, and other countries werefar more violent during the late Middle Ages than any cities are today.Contributors show that thedramatic change is due, in part, to the fact that violence was often toleratedor even accepted as a form of dispute settlement in village-dominatedpremodern society. Interpersonal violence declined in the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries, as dispute resolution was taken over by courtsand other state institutions and the church became increasingly intolerantof it.The book also challenges anumber of other historical-sociological theories, among them that contemporaryorganized crime is new, and addresses continuing debate about the meaningand usefulness of crime statistics.CONTRIBUTORS: Esther Cohen,Herman Diederiks, Florike Egmond, Eric A. Johnson, Michele Mancino, EricH. Monkkonen, Eva Österberg, James A. Sharpe, Pieter Spierenburg,Jan Sundin, Barbara Weinberger