Strain of Violence

From Colonial times, Americans have been known as a rough, violent people. The generalization is perhaps unjust, for it is the special nature of our violence which sets us apart - whereas the 19th century English might turn out for a state hanging as for a holiday, Americans of the same period would more likely stage the necktie party themselves. Brown, Professor of History at William and Mary, details vast numbers of incidents of extra-legal violence - lynchings, riots, feuds, militant groups - which mar and enliven our past. Separate essays cover the Revolutionary period, the development of vigilante traditions in South Carolina, San Francisco, and central Texas, the early-tolerant attitude of the legal profession toward vigilantism, and the evolution of American racial violence. There's some fascinating marginalia - Lynchburg, S.C., was named for Colonel Charles Lynch, whose zeal for order also provided the terms "lynch law" and "lynching." Discover the true fate of Print Olive, Texas feuder, daredevil and' desperado. The essays seem designed to be read individually; taken together, they fail to develop and are often repetitious. Now and again, Brown succumbs to the inherent sensationalism of his subject - the essay on central Texas, for example, sometimes descends to a sort of shoot-em-up prose. (Kirkus Reviews)