Steven Pinker and the nature of violence in history / Philip Dwyer and Mark Micale -- The inner demons of the better angels of our nature / Dan Smail -- The use and abuse of statistics in writing the history of violence / Dag LindstroĢm -- Progress and its contradictions : human rights, inequality, and violence / Eric D. Weitz -- Pinker's technocratic neoliberalism, and why it matters / David Bell -- Steven Pinker, Norbert Elias and the civilizing process / Philip Dwyer and Elizabeth Roberts-Pedersen -- Steven Pinker's 'Prehistoric anarchy' : a bioarchaeological critique / Linda Fibiger -- Getting medieval on Steven Pinker : violence and medieval England / Sara M. Butler -- History, Violence and the Enlightenment / Philip Dwyer -- The complexity of history : Russia and Steven Pinker's thesis / Nancy Kollmann -- Necrology of angels : violence in Japanese history as a lens of critique / Michael Wert -- British imperial violence and the Middle East / Caroline Elkins -- A history of violence and indigeneity : Pinker and the Native Americas / Matthew Restall -- The rise and rise of sexual violence / Joanna Bourke -- Where angels fear to tread : racialized policing, mass incarceration, and executions as state violence in the post-civil rights era / Robert T. Chase -- The better angels of which nature? Violence and environmental history in the modern world / Corey Ross -- On cool reason and hot-blooded impulses? Violence and the history of emotion / Susan K. Morrissey -- Pinker and contemporary historical consciousness / Mark Micale.
Summary:
"In The Better Angels of Our Nature Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argued that modern history has witnessed a dramatic decline in human violence of every kind, and that in the present we are experiencing the most peaceful time in human history. But what do top historians think about Pinker's reading of the past? Does his argument stand up to historical analysis? In The Darker Angels of our Nature, fifteen historians of international stature evaluate Pinker's arguments and find them lacking. Studying the history of violence from Soviet Russia to Native America, Medieval England and the Imperial Middle East, these scholars debunk the myth of non-violent modernity. Asserting that the real story of human violence is richer, more interesting and incomparably more complex than Pinker's sweeping, simplified narrative, this book tests, and bests, 'fake history' with expert knowledge"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.