A close look at conflict

摘要

Violence matters. It has been scrutinized by numerous researchers, from anthropologists to zoologists. Yet virtually all the discoveries and insights so accumulated - including those from sociology - get short shrift in this ambitious book. Author Randall Collins discusses "at least 30 types of violence", from bullying and domestic violence, through staged fair fights and contract killings, to gang fights, sporting brawls, riots, police brutality and warfare. He draws on a vast opportunity sample of photographs, documentary films, and participant and witness accounts. Nevertheless, his agenda is tightly focused. He gives all these phenomena the same two-component 'micro-sociological' analysis.