The Darker Angels of Our Nature: Refuting the Pinker Theory of History & Violence

Description

In The Better Angels of Our Nature Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker argued that modern history has witnessed a dramatic decline in human violence of every kind, and that in the present we are experiencing the most peaceful time in human history. But what do top historians think about Pinker's reading of the past? Does his argument stand up to historical analysis? In The Darker Angels of our Nature, seventeen scholars of international stature evaluate Pinker's arguments and find them lacking. Studying the history of violence from Japan and Russia to Native America, Medieval England and the Imperial Middle East, these scholars debunk the myth of non-violent modernity. Asserting that the real story of human violence is richer, more interesting and incomparably more complex than Pinker's sweeping, simplified narrative, this book tests, and bests, 'fake history' with expert knowledge. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Contents ILLUSTRATION Contributors Preface Chapter 1: Steven Pinker and the nature of violence in history Part I: Interpretations Chapter 2: The inner demons of The Better Angels of Our Nature Chapter 3: Pinker and the use and abuse of statistics in writing the history of violence Chapter 4: Progress and its contradictions: Human rights, inequality and violence Chapter 5: Pinker’s technocratic neoliberalism, and why it matters Chapter 6: Steven Pinker, Norbert Elias and The Civilizing Process Part II: Periods Chapter 7: Steven Pinker’s ‘prehistoric anarchy’: A bioarchaeological critique Chapter 8: Getting medieval on Steven Pinker: Violence and medieval England Chapter 9: History, violence and the Enlightenment Part III: Places Chapter 10: The complexity of history: Russia and Steven Pinker’s thesis  Chapter 11: A necrology of angels: Violence in Japanese history as a lens of critique Chapter 12: British imperial violence and the Middle East Part IV: Themes Chapter 13: A history of violence and indigeneity: Pinker and the Native Americas Chapter 14: The rise and rise of sexual violence Chapter 15: Where angels fear to tread: Racialized policing, mass incarceration and executions as state violence in the post–civil rights era Chapter 16: The better angels of which nature?: Violence and environmental history in the modern world Chapter 17: On cool reason and hot-blooded impulses : Violence and the history of emotion Part V: Coda Chapter 18: Pinker and contemporary historical consciousness Bibliography Index