This innovative book tells the fascinating tale of the long histories of violence, punishment, and the human body, and how they are all connected. Taking the decline of violence and the transformation of punishment as its guiding themes, the book highlights key dynamics of historical and social change, and charts how a refinement and civilizing of manners, and new forms of celebration and festival, accompanied the decline of violence.

Pieter Spierenburg, a leading figure in historical criminology, skillfully extends his view over three continents, back to the middle ages and even beyond to the Stone Age. Ranging along the way from murder to etiquette, from social control to popular culture, from religion to death, and from honor to prisons, every chapter creatively uses the theories of Norbert Elias, while also engaging with the work of Foucault and Durkheim.

The scope and rigor of the analysis will strongly interest scholars of criminology, history, and sociology, while the accessible style and the intriguing stories on which the book builds will appeal to anyone interested in the history of violence and punishment in civilization.

This innovative book tells the fascinating tale of the long histories of violence, punishment, and the human body, and how they are all connected. Taking the decline of violence and the transformation of punishment as its guiding themes, the book highlights key dynamics of historical and social change, and charts how a refinement and civilizing of manners, and new forms of celebration and festival, accompanied the decline of violence.

Pieter Spierenburg, a leading figure in historical criminology, skillfully extends his view over three continents, back to the middle ages and even beyond to the Stone Age. Ranging along the way from murder to etiquette, from social control to popular culture, from religion to death, and from honor to prisons, every chapter creatively uses the theories of Norbert Elias, while also engaging with the work of Foucault and Durkheim.

The scope and rigor of the analysis will strongly interest scholars of criminology, history, and sociology, while the accessible style and the intriguing stories on which the book builds will appeal to anyone interested in the history of violence and punishment in civilization.

This book offers a fascinating and insightful overview of seven centuries of murder in Europe. It tells the story of the changing face of violence and documents the long-term decline in the incidence of homicide. From medieval vendettas to stylised duels, from the crime passionel of the modern period right up to recent public anxieties about serial killings and underworld assassinations, the book offers a richly illustrated account of murder's metamorphoses.
In this original and compelling contribution, Spierenburg sheds new light on several important themes. He looks, for example, at the transformation of homicide from a private matter, followed by revenge or reconciliation, into a public crime, always subject to state intervention. Combining statistical data with a cultural approach, he demonstrates the crucial role gender played in the spiritualisation of male honour and the subsequent reduction of male-on-male aggression, as well as offering a comparative view of how different social classes practised and reacted to violence.
This authoritative study will be of great value to students and scholars of the history of crime and violence, criminology and the sociology of violence. At a time when murder rates are rising and public fears about violent crime are escalating, this book will also interest the general reader intrigued by how our relationship with murder reached this point.

This book offers a fascinating and insightful overview of seven centuries of murder in Europe. It tells the story of the changing face of violence and documents the long-term decline in the incidence of homicide. From medieval vendettas to stylised duels, from the crime passionel of the modern period right up to recent public anxieties about serial killings and underworld assassinations, the book offers a richly illustrated account of murder's metamorphoses.

In this original and compelling contribution, Spierenburg sheds new light on several important themes. He looks, for example, at the transformation of homicide from a private matter, followed by revenge or reconciliation, into a public crime, always subject to state intervention. Combining statistical data with a cultural approach, he demonstrates the crucial role gender played in the spiritualisation of male honour and the subsequent reduction of male-on-male aggression, as well as offering a comparative view of how different social classes practised and reacted to violence.

This authoritative study will be of great value to students and scholars of the history of crime and violence, criminology and the sociology of violence. At a time when murder rates are rising and public fears about violent crime are escalating, this book will also interest the general reader intrigued by how our relationship with murder reached this point.