Bibliographical Essay

The main syntheses of the long-term European history of homicide and serious violence are Robert Muchembled, Une histoire de la violence de la fin du moyen age a nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 2008) and Pieter Spierenburg, A History of Murder: Personal Violence in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008).

Studies of homicide and violence in non-Western countries include: Roderic Broadhurst Thierry Bouhours and Brigitte Bouhours, Violence and the Civilising Process in Cambodia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Eric A. Johnson, Ricardo D. Salvatore and Pieter Spierenburg (eds.), Murder and Violence in Modern Latin America (Chichester: Wiley, 2013); Martha S.

The main publications on the quantitative dimension of the history of homicide in modern Europe are Manuel Eisner, ‘Modernity Strikes Back? A Historical Perspective on the Latest Increase in Interpersonal Violence, 1960-1990’, International Journal of Conflict and Violence 2.2 (2008), 289-316; Marcelo F. Aebi and Antonia Linde, ‘The Persistence of Lifestyles: Rates and Correlates of Homicide in Western Europe from i960 to 2010’, European Journal of Criminology ii (2014), 552-77; Karin Wittebrood and Paul Nieuwbeerta, ‘Een kwart eeuw stijging in geregistreerde criminaliteit: Vooral meer registratie, nauwelijks meer criminaliteit’, Tjdschrift voor Criminologie 48.3 (2006), 227-42. A few publications include a quantitative analysis of homicide rates in the non­Western world: Joerg Baten et al., ‘Personal Security since 1820’, in Jan Luiten van Zanden, et al. (eds.), How Was Life? Global Well-Being since 1820 (Paris: OECD, 2014), pp. 139-58; Baldev Raj Nayar, Violence and Crime in India: A Quantitative Study (Delhi: Macmillan Company of India, 1975).

For a general analysis of the global history of murder, see Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (New York: Viking, 2011) and Pieter Spierenburg, ‘Toward a Global History of Homicide and Organized Murder’, Crime, Histoire & Societes / Crime, History & Societies 18.2 (2014), 99-116.

As to various themes in the history of serious interpersonal violence in modern Europe, recent studies have dealt notably with duelling: Ulrike Ludwig, Barbara Krug-Richter and Gerd Schwerhoff (eds.), Das Duell: Ehrenkämpfe vom Mittelalter bis zur Moderne (Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2012); Steven C. Hughes, Politics of the Sword: Dueling, Honor and Masculinity in Modern Italy (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007); Stephen Banks, A Polite Exchange of Bullets: The Duel and the English Gentleman, 1750-1850 (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2010); Ignaz Matthey, Eer verloren, al verloren: het duel in de Nederlandse geschiedenis (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2012); Irina Reyfman, Ritualized Violence Russian Style: The Duel in Russian Culture and Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

Concerning other specific themes in the history of serious interpersonal violence in modern Europe as well as the non-Western world, on the relationship with colonialism: Martin J. Wiener, An Empire on Trial: Race, Murder and Justice under British Rule, 1870-1935 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Elizabeth Kolsky, Colonial Justice in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). On murder in connection with Indigenous beliefs: Colin Murray and Peter Basil Sanders, Medicine Murder in Colonial Lesotho: The Anatomy of a Moral Crisis (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005); David Pratten, The Man-Leopard Murders: History and Society in Colonial Nigeria (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007). On the interrelationship with punishment: Pieter Spierenburg, Violence and Punishment: Civilizing the Body through Time (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013). On violence and drugs: David T. Courtwright, Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).