Violence in Europe

With a Ph.D. in political science from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques and a B.A. and M.A. in American Studies from the University of Paris-Sorbonne, Sophie Body-Gendrot is a Professor of Political Science and of American studies at the Sorbonne, Paris. She founded the Center for Urban Studies (CEUMA). She is a researcher at the Centre de recherche sociologique sur le droit et les institutions pénales (CNRS-CESDIP-Dept of Justice) and an expert for the program Urban Age at the London School of Economics on safety and public space. She is also a member of the French Civilian Police Review Commission. She has wrote or co-edited more than fifteen books and over a hundred articles. The most recent works related to urban violence and public policies are La peur détruira-t-elle la ville? (Will Fear Destroy the City?); Violence in Europe (coedited with P. Spierenburg); Sortir des banlieues: Pour en finir avec la tyrannie des territories (Getting Out of Inner-cities: Putting an End to Territorial Tyranny); Police et discriminations raciales: Le tabou français; La société américaine après le 11 septembre?; Villes: La fin de la violence?; The Social Control of Cities; Villes et violence; and a chapter in The Endless City called "Confronting Fear."

• Contested Definitions.- Violence: Reflections About a Word.- Violence as an Essentially Contested Concept.- Long-Term Trends.- Homicide in Scandinavia: Long-Term Trends and Their Interpretations.- Violence in France’s Past: An Anthropological Approach.- The Fall and Rise of Homicide in Ireland.- Contemporary Trends.- Violence in Present-Day France: Data and Sociological Analysis.- From Old Threats to Enigmatic Enemies:The Evolution of European Policies from Low Intensity Violence to Homegrown Terrorism.- Gendering Violent Practices.- The Language of Violence: Symbolic Body Parts in Marital Conflicts in Early Modern France.- Negotiating Violence and Gender: Security and the Night Time Economy in the UK.- Politics, War and Violence.- Violence and War: Measuring Homicide in Belgium (1900–1950).- Democratization and Violence: European and International Perspectives.- Violence and Violence-Control in Long-Term Perspective: ‘Testing’ Elias in Relation to War, Genocide, Crime, Punishment and Sport.

From the reviews: "Sophie Body-Gendrot and Pieter Spierenburg bring together a collection of essays on the social construction of violence in Western Europe. ... the book's strength lies in its conceptual sophistication and in its ability to pull together valuable points of view. ... an extraordinary job of describing both the construction of violence and its changing nature. The editors and authors have produced a work that is an excellent primer for students and faculty seeking to understand violence in both a general and a particular sense." (H. V. Savitch, Terrorism & Political Violence, 2012)