Violence and Society
- Larry Ray - University of Kent, UK
This highly respected title comes revised and updated in a second edition to provide you with a contemporary overview of violence and society.
Clearly and lucidly written, this book offers broad coverage of theoretical debates, using case studies from the author’s own extensive research to bring the various theories alive. With a sociological approach throughout, it provides up-to-date coverage of key topics including gender and violence, collective violence and media and violence.
New to this edition:
- Three new chapters on ‘Collective Violence’, ‘Violence and the Visual’ and ‘Theories of Violence'
- Material on sex offending and the night-time economy
- Learning features in each chapter and an ‘at-a-glance’ overview within the introduction
This new edition of Violence and Society skilfully updates the 2011 version, with a wealth of new theoretical and empirical material and two new chapters, on collective violence and the power of visual representations of violence and its effects. All the virtues of the first edition – empirical richness, theoretical breadth and intellectual imagination – are again in evidence and enhanced by the new material, including a brilliant demonstration of how microsocial theory can be developed to explain macrosocial violence. The book is an important and distinctive contribution to research and scholarship on violence.
Sociology has long focused on conflict but has relatively neglected violence as one of its forms and methods. In this new edition of Larry Ray's pioneering book, we have a thorough engagement with violence in its many modes and causes. He provides an intelligent social theory of violence that represents a powerful application of the sociological imagination, and like C Wright Mills, in many ways he offers us a striking diagnosis of the modern condition, with its propensity to violence.
Larry Ray's book Violence & Society gives an essential overview of the relevant literature and topics as well as examples from current empirical research. I commend the author for including the topics 'collective violence', 'media representation' and 'theories' as well as 'sex work/prostitution' and 'human trafficing' in the new edition. Some of the author's priorities limit my personal use of the chapters; i.e. the centering of masculinity in the 'gender' chapters, the centering of 'hate' regarding violence targeted at racialized people and the limited discussion of sexualized violence, which is a central topic in both gendered violence and war/conflict violence. Although this limits my personal use of the book, it is an insightful read for novices to the sociology of violence and researchers who want to build dialogue with colleagues in other fields.
IT'S A NICE SUPPLEMENTARY READING FOR THE STUDENTS.
Larry Ray's book gives an excellent insight into the history, phenomena, causes and consequences of violence. It refers to recent empirical studies as well as to the main approaches to understanding the phenomena of violence in societies. It is an introduction like a report on current findings. I have read the book as a German researcher on violence and will use it in my seminars and courses. Andreas Zick, Director, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence, Bielefeld University, Germany
Sample Materials & Chapters
Violence and Society - The Politics of Hate Crime
Chapter 5: Gender and Violence
