Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory

I've admired Randy Collins' work for several years because of his willingness to examine human actions at the micro level, not just the macro level. His previous book, INTERACTIONAL RITUAL CHAINS, was a remarkable investigation of interpersonal dynamics from a fresh perspective. VIOLENCE likewise offers a different way of looking at and understanding human behavior--in this instance, one of its more troubling facets. Thoroughly researched and generally well written, the book is applied social science at its best, and I recommend it highly. Collins rightly dismisses the social constructivist view that violence emerges out of a person's history--a disadvantaged home life, childhood abuse, etc.--and focuses on the particular situations that give rise to violence. Doing so enables him to explain not just those acts of violence committed by "bad" people but also those committed by "good" people, such as police officers and soldiers. He argues convincingly that a person's history does not predict acts of violence; rather there are a number of factors that come together at a particular time and place to trigger a violent act.I will say, however, that VIOLENCE is not as well written as RITUAL CHAINS. There is a great deal of repetition, especially in the first several chapters, that a good copy editor (where have they all gone?) would have eliminated. I found the repetition annoying, which is why I did not give the book five stars. Perhaps other readers will be able to overlook this issue, but given the brilliance of Collins' previous work, I know he (and his pubisher) can do better.

I'd been waiting for a "sequel" to Dave Grossman's On Killing to see if it held up, and this is it. Collins makes sense of why soldiers so infrequently fired their weapons in World War II by showing that violence is difficult in any situation where the opponents are evenly matched. It takes a safe environment like a limited schoolyard fight or a massive mismatch like a driveby shooting for violence to be easy.You also come away with a different view of human nature after reading the book. You begin to think that what separates humans from animals might not be language or tools after all, but our capacity for emotional mirroring. Collins' book makes the world look kindler and gentler even when he's discussing the ugliest violence, because he shows how unnatural it is for us and how the situation has to be just right for it to occur.After being raised in American culture with its love for violence from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to SWAT teams, it's really interesting to find out that it's all based on macho and bluster. Reading this book is like someone raised in Sparta going to modern-day Sweden and finding out the world isn't innately violent after all.

Good job amazon, the book came on time and as described.As for Randall Collins, I hate this book. It's oversimplifying crime. He basically says the crime equivalent of "people eat when they are hungry". No, really?? I disagreed with this book so much but it was interesting and he gave interesting examples that often went off on tangents. I will give this book 4 stars because even though I think the author is full of it, it made me think and question him and myself a lot. So eliciting that kind of emotion from a person (even though I learned nothing) is worth some stars. But the book is super redundant and could have been substantially shorter if the author quit repeating himself.

Thus is a hard one to judge. There are so many good observations, analyses and interpretations in this book that it deserves a lot of praise. However, I find that the empirical part lacks in presentation and sometimes does not support the qualitative interpretation. It has a very interesting and unusual approach. The empirical data seems to be rather narrow given the scope of this book. Some of what he says is debatable, but that is a subjective criticism.It is definitely a book worth reading and it made me very interested in Randell's other work.

I am still only about half way through. The book is full of insights about violence that I always knew but somehow couldn't articulate or put together in a structured way. I work in the area of domestic violence, so I was able to talk with violent men about the difference between Hollywood violence and how violence really happens and they confirmed what is in the book. I am looking forward to the insights of the other half of the book.

outstanding book. i draw upon it frequently in my work with forensic patients, and I teach a class at our police academy which includes a lot of Prof. Collins' material. The cadets love it. My bookcase is filled with dozens of books, classics and otherwise, on violence, and Collins' is my most useful one.

While I don't prescribe to Collins' theories of violent crime causation, the book is well-written and a must-have for anyone who enjoys a good debate.

Easily the most boring book I have ever had to read for a class. Fortunately my professor had us reading two books for the semester. Violence, The Enduring Problem by Alvarez and Bachman is EXCEPTIONAL, I highly recommend it.

More in response to the review by choozymcr - though slightly confused whether the half that this psychology student knew was the 'hated' part of book or not. Easier to believe that psychology students would dislike the book because it offers a challenge to some of the fundamental assumptions made by the discipline - notably those with an evolutionary twist to their experimentation.The arguments are open to criticism but notion of pathways makes good contribution to understanding violence. Moreover it moves explanation to the type of situations that push people over the edge - away from the popular conception of violence being easy because it is built into out primitive being. The assumptions people make are based on poor evidence - worst of all is psychologists drawing conclusions from "aggression".It isn't perfect, he does over-extend the argument but his theory is a lot more plausible than those drawn from weak evidence and worst case examples.

This is an astonishingly good book - Randall Collins has provided by far the most extensive, systematic and methodologically original investigation of violence currently available, and in a form comprehensible both to the general public and to specialist academics. Deploying extensive quantitative data on violence, carefully analysed case studies, photographic and video analysis of riots and abuses, and interviews with an extraordinary range of informants - including a professional hit-man - this work is a huge advance in the effort to understand violence, and will dominate research on this topic for some time. Collins demonstrates convincingly that, contrary to platitudinous assertions regarding man's 'innate aggression', acts of violence are hard, and the vast majority of people - including trained soldiers - are reluctant to engage in them and incredibly inept when they do so. What makes violence possible, Collins demonstrates, is the generation of certain emotional states rooted in both individual and collective behaviour. He analyses the way such processes work in riots and civilian violence, warfare, sporting violence, and terroristic or criminal violence, with extraordinary intellectual sophistication and explanatory force. The results are radical, provocative and important, with implications for the full gamut of disciplines, theorists and practitioners who deal with violence.This is, in short, one of the most impressive academic books I have read - it demands examination from anyone interested in this topic.

There are a lot of reasons I love this, not the least of which because Collins takes the time to explain his examples, both clearly and exhaustively. Although exhaustive can often mean boring, the very nature of the topic - violence - means that for our rubbernecking tendencies as people, the examples don't really get tedious. Critique often circles around Collins' attempts to make a macro theory of this micro interaction, but I believe he makes his argument persuasively. Even if you don't agree with some of the finer points of his argument, he meticulously treats the topic of Violence in such a way that the theory doesn't get toppled with minor disagreements. I think this work will be canonized in the subfield.

A abordagem micro interacionista traz novas, e importantes, perspectivas de se perceber a violência em seu aspecto micro sociológico, longe dos conceitos cansados sobre esse fato social tão conhecido e experimentado por qualquer membro da sociedade.

dislike the book.disagree with half of what he has to say and his methodolodyalso as psychologist we knew all this already.pure criminology students liked it more