History of Violence

Robert Muchembled is a French historian. In 1967, he passed the Agrégation in history. In 1985 he was awarded a doctorate for his thesis on attitudes to violence and society in Artois between 1440 and 1600. In 1986 he became Professor of Modern History at Paris 13 University.

• Chapter 1. What is violence?Is violence innate?Violence and manlinessSemen and blood: a history of honourChapter 2. Violence: seven centuries of spectacular declineThe reliability of the crime figuresSeven centuries of declineThe 'making' of young menChapter 3. The youth festivals of violence (thirteenth to seventeenth centuries)A culture of violenceViolent festivities and brutal gamesYouth violenceChapter 4. The urban peace at the end of the Middle AgesThe pacificatory townsControlling the youngViolence costs dearChapter 5. Cain and Medea. Homicide and the construction of sexed genders (1500-1650)A judicial revolutionIn pursuit of the ungrateful son: the spread of the blood tabooMedea, the guilty motherChapter 6. The noble duel and popular revolt. The metamorphoses of violenceThe duel, a French exceptionNoble youths sharpen their swordsPopular violence and the frustrations of youthChapter 7. Violence tamed (1650-1960)Murder forbiddenThe civilizing townViolence and changing concepts of honour in the countrysideChapter 8. Mortal thrills and crime fiction (sixteenth to twentieth centuries)The devil, assuredly & The birth of the crime fictionFrom blood-thirsty murderer to well-loved banditBlood and inkChapter 9. The return of the gangs. Contemporary adolescence and violenceDeath in paradiseJuvenile delinquency'Rebel without a cause', or 'eternal recurrence'Is the end of violence possible?

"A vivid, thoughtful, deeply researched exploration of one of the main problems of human societies and a fascinating reflection on the 'extreme plasticity of civilizations'."Times Higher Education "This is one of Robert Muchembled's best books, a lucid and persuasive combination of broad sweep with vivid detail and of synthesis with original research."Peter Burke, University of Cambridge"In this wide-ranging book, Robert Muchembled, one of France's most talented historians, draws on a lifetime of study to elucidate the history of violence in Europe from the late middle ages to the present. In showing how Western Europe by the twentieth century had achieved the lowest level of interpersonal violence yet known to the world, Muchembled employs modern gender analysis to challenge historians to reconsider many long-held assumptions about the control of violent behaviour in the West."Julius R. Ruff, Marquette University and author of Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800