The Rise of Organised Brutality: A Historical Sociology of Violence

350 Pages·2017·1.879 MB·English

by  Siniša Malešević

T h e R i s e o f
Orga nised
Brutality
A historical sociology of
Violence
´
Siniša Maleševic
The Rise of Organised Brutality
Challenging the prevailing belief that organised violence is experien-
cing historically continuous decline, this book provides an in-depth
sociological analysis that shows organised violence is, in fact, on the
rise. Malešević demonstrates that violence is determined by organisa-
tionalcapacity,ideologicalpenetrationandmicrosolidarity,ratherthan
biological tendencies, meaning that despite premodern societies being
exposed to spectacles of cruelty and torture, such societies had no
organisational means to systematically slaughter millions of individ-
uals.Maleševićsuggeststhatviolenceshouldnotbeanalysedasjustan
eventorprocess,butalsoviachangingperceptionsofthoseeventsand
processes,and bylinkingthistobroader socialtransformations onthe
interpolity and intergroup levels, he makes his key argument that
organised violence has proliferated. Focussing on wars, revolutions,
genocidesandterrorism,thisbookshowshowmodernsocialorganisa-
tionsutiliseideologyandmicrosolidaritytomobilisepublicsupportfor
mass-scale violence.
Siniša Malešević is a professor of sociology at the University College
Dublin. His recent books include Nation-States and Nationalisms
(2013),TheSociologyofWarandViolence(CambridgeUniversityPress,
2010),IdentityasIdeology(2006),andTheSociologyofEthnicity(2004)
and edited volumes Ernest Gellner and Historical Sociology (2015),
Nationalism and War (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Ernest
Gellner and Contemporary Social Thought (Cambridge University Press,
2007). His work has been translated into Chinese, Croatian, Persian,
Turkish,Portuguese,SerbianandSpanish.

The Rise of Organised Brutality
A Historical Sociology of Violence
Siniša Malešević
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For Luna and Bilja and the better world they
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Contents
Acknowledgements page viii
Introduction: TheFaces ofViolence 1
1 What IsOrganised Violence? 9
2 Violencein the Long Run 41
3 How Old IsHuman Brutality? 67
4 TheRise and Rise ofOrganised Violence 99
5 Warfare 142
6 Revolutions 174
7 Genocides 211
8 Terrorisms 249
9 WhyDoHumansFight? 281
Conclusion: The Future ofOrganised Violence 308
References 313
Index 337
vii
Acknowledgements
While working on this book, I have received a lot of help, support,
suggestions and comments from many friends and colleagues. In par-
ticular, I would like to thank Miguel Centeno, Chris Coker, Randall
Collins, Manuel Eisner, Robert Gerwarth, Antonio Giustozzi, Peter
Halden, John A. Hall, John Hutchinson, Jan Honing, Richard Jenkins,
Stathis Kalyvas, Krishan Kumar, Sean L’Estrange, Jonathan Leader
Maynard, Steve Loyal, Michael Mann, Aogan Mulcahy, Niall
O’Dochartaigh, Christian Ollson, Larry Ray, Kevin Ryan, Stacey Scri-
ver, Martin Shaw, Jennifer Todd, Sylvia Walby and Andreas Wimmer.
I have also benefitted from the discussions and comments of colleagues
and students at various venues where I presented some of the ideas and
arguments developed in the book: the Academy of Sciences and Arts of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo; the European University Institute,
Florence;FreeUniversityofBrussels–ULB;InstitutBarcelonad’Estudis
Internacionals–IBEI Barcelona; the Institute for Philosophy and Social
Theory,Belgrade;theInter-UniversityCenter,Dubrovnik;McGillUni-
versity, Montreal; National University of Ireland, Galway; Swedish
Defence University, Stockholm; University of Edinburgh; University
College Dublin; the University of Copenhagen; the University of Kent;
the University of Lancaster; the University of Oxford; Queen’s Univer-
sity Belfast; and Olympia Summer Academy, Olympia, Greece.
Most of all, I am indebted to the continuous love and support of my
family: my wife Vesna,and our now big boys, Luka and Alex.
Chapter 3 is a substantially revised and extended version of the paper
originallypublishedas‘HowOldisHumanBrutality:OntheStructural
OriginsofViolence?’CommonKnowledge,2016,22,Number1:81–104.
I am grateful to the Duke University Press for permitting me to use
this paper.
viii
Introduction: The Faces of Violence
When we look into the past, we tend to be horrified by the apparent
prevalence of cruelty. This comes across in the novels, art, religious
scriptures, school textbooks and many popular outlets that record mass
slaughters, violent riots, excessive torture, incessant wars, bloodthirsty
conflicts and gruesome punishments against ordinary individuals.
From ancient China and India to Africa, Roman Europe and the pre-
Columbian Americas, the focus is on the prevalence of brutal practices
andinhumanebehaviourofourpredecessors.Thetypicalexamplesthat
one can encounter in these recordings of the past include detailed
descriptions of torture, such as the Chinese Lingchi protracted method,
involvingsmallknifecutsofhumanlimbsandtorso(knownas‘deathby
a thousand cuts’); Ashoka’s Hell, an elaborate torture chamber in
ancient India; or the Aztec human sacrifices accompanied by live heart
extractions. However, at the nadir of this macabre theatre is medieval
Europe,habituallydepictedasanageofperpetualtorture,grislymurders
and celebration of the most extreme forms of violence. In the popular
imagination, this period of human history is firmly associated with the
complex instruments of torture, such as the breaking wheel; the head
crusher; or the infamous Iron Maiden, an iron cabinet with a hinged
front and spike-covered interior, developed to enclose a human being.
Forthisreason,‘medievalbrutality’hasbecomeaphraseidentifiedwith
gruesomeforms ofviolence and assuch iscommonlyused todenounce
one’s opponents.
However,ascontemporarymedievalistsdemonstrate,historicalreality
doesnotsquarewellwiththesepopularperceptionsofmedievalEurope.
AsKlemettilä(2009),Kleinschmidt(2008),Carrel(2009),Baraz(2003)
andothersshow,despiteviolence-pronerhetoricandsomeghastlyartis-
tic depictions, medieval Europe was not a particularly violent period in
human history. Kleinschmidt (2008: 170) emphasises that ‘the early
medieval sources provide little explicit evidence for war-proneness or
outright delight in atrocities on the side of those engaged in war’. Baraz
(2003)identifiescomplexrealitieswherecrueltyisusedsporadicallyand
1