Book contents
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume iii
- Introduction to Volume iii
- Part I Empire, Race and Ethnicity
- Part II Cultures of War and Violence
- Part III Intimate and Gendered Violence
- Part IV The State, Punishment and Justice
- Part V Popular Protest and Resistance
- Part VI Religious and Sacred Violence
- Part VII Representations and Constructions of Violence
- 29 African Ritual Violence: Close Combat in Western Africa and the Diaspora
- 30 Intercultural Emblems of Violence in the Spanish Colonisation of the Americas
- 31 Spectacles of Violence in China
- 32 Visualising Violence in Reformation Europe
- 33 Violence, Civil Society and European Civilisation
- Index
- References
33 - Violence, Civil Society and European Civilisation
from Part VII - Representations and Constructions of Violence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 March 2020
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- The Cambridge World History of Violence
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume iii
- Introduction to Volume iii
- Part I Empire, Race and Ethnicity
- Part II Cultures of War and Violence
- Part III Intimate and Gendered Violence
- Part IV The State, Punishment and Justice
- Part V Popular Protest and Resistance
- Part VI Religious and Sacred Violence
- Part VII Representations and Constructions of Violence
- 29 African Ritual Violence: Close Combat in Western Africa and the Diaspora
- 30 Intercultural Emblems of Violence in the Spanish Colonisation of the Americas
- 31 Spectacles of Violence in China
- 32 Visualising Violence in Reformation Europe
- 33 Violence, Civil Society and European Civilisation
- Index
- References
Summary
The control and sublimation of violence is a story that is essential to the idea of modernity and the rise of the West. The ability to control one’s emotions is fundamental to the notion of aristocracy and its right to rule over others. Sixteenth-century Europe saw an intense effort to control social intercourse through civility. It is axiomatic to notions of the civilising process that the new civility progressively tamed and controlled violence during the early modern period. But this is not what happened. There was a significant increase in homicide rates from the mid sixteenth century which peaked in the mid seventeenth century. There was a notable increase in elite violence in particular, as gentlemen transgressed codes of etiquette in order to provoke rivals and demonstrate their social superiority. The invention of civil society at the end of the seventeenth century was a response to the problem of violence. The knowledge that European society had undergone a pacification process over the previous half a century was crucial to the invention of ‘civilisation’, a word first coined in the 1750s. This word and its cognates were crucial to legitimising the European colonial project. The language of civilisation was employed as a euphemism for violence, justifying ethnic cleansing and enslavement, and enabling the perpetrators of violence to distance themselves from their victims.
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- Information
- The Cambridge World History of Violence , pp. 660 - 678Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
Bibliographic Essay
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