Violence and Nonviolence

Pathways to Understanding

"Gregg Barak’s Violence and Nonviolence is a thoughtful, comprehensive examination of violence in the United States. Structurally and conceptually this book works. Barak addresses violence in an interdisciplinary way, addressing history, psychology, biology, cultural studies, and sociology. Moreover, Barak does an excellent job of discussing the intersection of race, class, and gender and those relationships with violence."

 "Clearly, the strength of this book is its comprehensive and reciprocal approach. I found this to be an enjoyable and provocative book… that treats the topic holistically and offers a vision for overcoming current patterns of violence. I am convinced that this is an important work that will ultimately be well-received by undergraduates, graduate students, violence specialists, and general readers."

"I think that the strengths of this book are twofold: Barak’s approach disaggregates violence into interpersonal, institutional, and structural violence which is very important yet rarely done; the latter part of the book explores the pathways to nonviolence, an underrepresented area in the study of violence."

"I have devoted close to 20 years studying and teaching about violence and I must say that this is a comprehensive book....I strongly believe that Barak has done an outstanding review of the extant literature and touches upon key issues of central concern to those of us who are social scientific experts on violence."