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In this book, a collection of experts investigate the varied forces - from global systems to local beliefs - that lead to civil violence, chaos and, perhaps, a new political order.
The State, Identity and Violence explores acts of mass violence occurring within national borders and examines the links such acts have to personal identities and how they challenge the character or very existence of the state. Building upon the anthropological premises of holism and cross-cultural comparison, this volume shows how violent challenges to existing states should be conceptualized as layered problems, with multiple kinds of causes. It not only goes beyond the "ancient hatreds" explanation, but shows the inadequacy of the concept of "ethnic violence" and of theories which treat interests and identities as separate, sometimes opposed variables
List of contents
Introduction, R. Brian Ferguson; Part 1 Commentaries; Chapter 1 Comments on state, identity and violence, Eric R. Wolf; Chapter 2 Forces of reaction and changes of scale in the world system of states, Joseph A. Tainter; Chapter 3 The state concept and a world of polities under perpetual siege, Yale H. Ferguson; Chapter 4 Tribalism, ethnicity and the state, David Maybury-Lewis; Chapter 5 Culture, violence, and ethnic nationalism, Kay Warren; Part 2 Cases; Chapter 6 Civil war in Peru, Linda J. Seligmann; Chapter 7 “Religious” violence in India, Johanna M. Lessinger; Chapter 8 The specter of superfluity, Bette Denich; Chapter 9 From the margins to the center, Anastasia Karakasidou; Chapter 10 Liberia, Diana DeG. Brown; Chapter 11 Angola and the fragmentation of the post-colonial African state, Helio Belik; Chapter 12 A Cold War story, S.P. Reyna; Chapter 13 The Cold War and chaos in Somalia, Catherine Besteman; Chapter 14 Conflicts versus contracts, Andrew Strathern, Pamela J. Stewart;
About the author
R. Brian Ferguson is a cultural anthropologist at Rutgers University-Newark. He has written extensively on many aspects of war, primarily as practiced by tribal peoples. His previously published books include Warfare, Culture and Environment (ed.), Yanomami Warfare and War in the Tribal Zone – co-edited with Neil Whitehead.
Summary
Explores acts of mass violence occurring within national borders and examines the links such acts have to personal identities and how they challenge the character or very existence of the state.
