Violence in Early Modern Europe 1500–1800

by Julius R. Ruff

• ISBN13: 9780521591195
• ISBN10: 0521591198
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-29
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A broad-ranging survey of violence in western Europe from the Reformation to the French Revolution. Julius Ruff summarises a huge body of research and provides readers with a clear, accessible, and engaging introduction to the topic of violence in early modern Europe. His book, enriched with fascinating illustrations, underlines the fact that modern preoccupations with the problem of violence are not unique, and that late medieval and early modern European societies produced levels of violence that may have exceeded those in the most violent modern inner-city neighbourhoods. Julius Ruff examines the role of the emerging state in controlling violence; the roots and forms of the period's widespread interpersonal violence; violence and its impact on women; infanticide; and rioting. This book, in the successful textbook series New Approaches to European History, will be of great value to students of European history, criminal justice sciences, and anthropology.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	x
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction: The problem of violence in early modern Europe	1	(10)
Representations of violence	11	(33)
States, arms, and armies	44	(29)
Justice	73	(44)
The discourse of interpersonal violence	117	(43)
Ritual group violence	160	(24)
Popular protest	184	(32)
Organized crime	216	(32)
Conclusion	248	(6)
Index	254