State, Identity and Violence

R. Brian Ferguson is a cultural anthropologist at Rutgers University-Newark. He has written extensively on many aspects of war, primarily as practiced by tribal peoples. His previously published books include Warfare, Culture and Environment (ed.), Yanomami Warfare and War in the Tribal Zone – co-edited with Neil Whitehead.

• Introduction, R. Brian Ferguson; Part 1 Commentaries; Chapter 1 Comments on state, identity and violence, Eric R. Wolf; Chapter 2 Forces of reaction and changes of scale in the world system of states, Joseph A. Tainter; Chapter 3 The state concept and a world of polities under perpetual siege, Yale H. Ferguson; Chapter 4 Tribalism, ethnicity and the state, David Maybury-Lewis; Chapter 5 Culture, violence, and ethnic nationalism, Kay Warren; Part 2 Cases; Chapter 6 Civil war in Peru, Linda J. Seligmann; Chapter 7 “Religious” violence in India, Johanna M. Lessinger; Chapter 8 The specter of superfluity, Bette Denich; Chapter 9 From the margins to the center, Anastasia Karakasidou; Chapter 10 Liberia, Diana DeG. Brown; Chapter 11 Angola and the fragmentation of the post-colonial African state, Helio Belik; Chapter 12 A Cold War story, S.P. Reyna; Chapter 13 The Cold War and chaos in Somalia, Catherine Besteman; Chapter 14 Conflicts versus contracts, Andrew Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart;