Beaten down : a history of interpersonal violence in the West

Resource Information

The work Beaten down : a history of interpersonal violence in the West represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Beaten down : a history of interpersonal violence in the West

Title remainder

a history of interpersonal violence in the West

Statement of responsibility

David Peterson del Mar

Creator

• Peterson del Mar, David, 1957-

Subject

• Interpersonal conflict -- British Columbia -- History
• Interpersonal conflict -- West (U.S.) -- History
• History
• Violence -- West (U.S.) -- History
• Violence -- British Columbia -- History

Genre

• History

Language

eng

Summary

The word "violence" conjures up images of terrorism, bombings, and lynchings. Beaten down is concerned with more prosaic acts of physical force--a husband slapping his wife, a parent taking a birch branch to a child, a pair of drunken friends squaring off to establish who is the "better man." David Peterson del Mar accounts for the social relations of power that lie behind this intimate form of violence, this "white noise" that has always been with us, humming quietly between more explosive acts of violence. Broad in its chronological and cultural sweep, Beaten down examines interpersonal violence in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia beginning with Native American cultures before colonization and continuing into the mid-twentieth century. The author has drawn on a vast array of vivid sources, including newspaper accounts, autobiographies, novels, oral histories, historical and ethnographic publications, and hundreds of detailed court cases to account for not only the relative frequency of different forms of violence, but also the shifting definitions and perceptions of what constitutes violence. This is a thoughtful and probing account of how and why people have hit each other and the manner in which opinion makers and ordinary citizens have censured, defended, or celebrated such acts. His conclusions have important implications for an understanding of violence and perceptions of violence in contemporary society

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

303.6/0978

Government publication

government publication of a state province territory dependency etc

Index

index present

LC call number

HM886

LC item number

.P474 2002

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography