Violence

• Prologue: Violence as Tragedy. Part 1. The Pathology of Violence. 1. Visits to Hell: Entering the World of the Prison. 2. Dead Souls. 3. Violent Action as Symbolic Language: Myth, Ritual, and Tragedy. Part 2. The “Germ Theory” of Violence. 4. How to Think About Violence. 5. Shame: The Emotions and Morality of Violence. Part 3. The Epidemiology of Violence. 6. The Symbolism of Punishment. 7. How to Increase the Rate of Violence – and Why. 8. The Deadliest Form of Violence is Poverty. 9. The Biology of Violence. 10. Culture, Gender, and Violence: “We Are Not Women”. Epilogue: Civilization and its Malcontents. Notes. Acknowledgements. Index.

James Gilligan has written a stunning book about violence. As a psychiatrist who has spent twenty-five years of his professional life treating men who committed murder, Gilligan draws poignantly on his work with prisoners to help us understand what motivates desperate men. In the end, he offers a compelling psychoanalytic explanation of violence while calling on society to take social, economic and cultural measures to help prevent the 'deadly epidemic' from spreading.