Why Humans Fight: The Social Dynamics of Close-Range Violence

ISBN-13: 9781009162814 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022 / 320 str.

Siniša Malešević (University College Dublin)

Opis

Malešević offers a novel sociological answer to the age-old question: 'Why do humans fight?'. Instead of focusing on the motivations of solitary individuals, he emphasises the centrality of the social and historical contexts that make fighting possible. He argues that fighting is not an individual attribute, but a social phenomenon shaped by one's relationships with other people. Drawing on recent scholarship across a variety of academic disciplines as well as his own interviews with the former combatants, Malešević shows that one's willingness to fight is a contextual phenomenon shaped by specific ideological and organisational logic. This book explores the role biology, psychology, economics, ideology, and coercion play in one's experience of fighting, emphasising the cultural and historical variability of combativeness. By drawing from numerous historical and contemporary examples from all over the world, Malešević demonstrates how social pugnacity is a relational and contextual phenomenon that possesses autonomous features.

Recenzje

'Sinisa Malešević has delivered a sweeping social history of face-to-face violence. In this masterful book, Malešević shows how violence is an inherently social, relational phenomenon, and he identifies the social structures that lay the foundation for organized killing. This book is ambitious, rigorous, and deeply convincing.' Erica Chenoweth, Harvard University

Spis treści

Acknowledgements; Introduction: The social anatomy of fighting; 1. The body and the mind: Biology and the close-range violence; 2. Profiting from fighting: The economics of micro-level violence; 3. Clashing beliefs: The ideological fighters; 4. Enforcing fighting: Coercing humans into violence; 5. Fighting for others: The networks of micro-bonds; 6. Avoiding violence: The structural context of non-fighting; 7. Social pugnacity in the combat zone; 8. Organisational power and social cohesion on the battlefield; 9. Emotions and the close-range fighting; 10. Killing in war: The emotional dynamics of pugnacity; 11. The future of close-range violence; Conclusion.