Strain of Violence: Historical Studies of American Violence and Vigilantism

These essays, written by leading historian of violence and Presidential Commission consultant Richard Maxwell Brown, consider the challenges posed to American society by the criminal, turbulent, and depressed elements of American life and the violent response of the established order. Covering violent incidents from colonial American to the present, Brown presents illuminating discussions of violence and the American Revolution, black-white conflict from slave revolts to the black ghetto riots of the 1960s, the vigilante tradition, and two of America's most violent regions--Central Texas, which witnessed some of the nastiest Indian wars of the West, and secessionist leader South Carolina's old Back Country. Brown's incisive look into the past holds profound implications for our present as well as our future.