The State, Identity and Violence: Political Disintegration in the Post-Cold War World (War and Society)

R. Brian Ferguson

ISBN 10: 0415274125 / ISBN 13: 9780415274128

Published by Routledge 2002-09-19, 2002

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-TNFPD-9780415274128

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The State, Identity and Violence: Political Disintegration in the Post-Cold War World (War and Society)
• Publisher: Routledge 2002-09-19
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415274125
• ISBN 13: 9780415274128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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

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.