There is a little known 18th century French essayist by the name of Luc de Clapiers de Vauvenargues, who in 1746 wrote, “Everything in the universe comes down to violence; this order of things … is in fact the most general, immutable, and important law of nature.” Vauvenargues’ claim contains more than a grain of truth. Everyday life up until the late 19th century was characterised by violence in some form or another, and in many parts of the world it still is. Why violence has dominated the course of human history for so long, and why attitudes towards it sometimes shift, is something that thinkers and philosophers have reflected on for centuries.

Violence is part and parcel of human history. It has been there since the dawn of time and it is, arguably, at the core of what it is to be human. It is one of our most distinctive traits, one of the things that all cultures and societies, across time, share in common. It has defined not only the ways in which individuals relate to each other, but also how collective entities and states have interacted with each other over the millennia. All societies are violent and all individuals have the capacity for violence; there are rare exceptions to both of these assertions, but not to the point that the general rule is undermined. However, not all societies (and not all individuals) are equally violent, or violent in the same way. Humanity has developed in myriad different ways at very different speeds. That is why some of the questions at the core of this book are: why is it that some societies are more violent than others, sometimes at particular points in their history, but not at others? Why is it that some individuals appear to be more predisposed towards violence than others? How is it that violence can both shock and thrill us, sometimes at the same time?

This book is designed to help us think about violence and in the process place the larger world in context. What is violence? What do we mean by it? Does that meaning shift over time and why? Are we becoming more or less violent? What is the purpose of violence? What does it achieve (if anything)? Is violence always ‘bad’ or can there by ‘good’ violence, violence that is regenerative and creative? Are there any limits to violence?

The book has two overarching aims.

First, it offers a global history of violence, showing the differences and similarities between various cultures. That means overcoming the tendency to interpret history from an entirely European perspective. Instead, it will offer a narrative that attempts to understand cultures in context, and that uses primary sources to do this. (I’m obviously constrained by the limited number of languages at my disposal but will rely on archaeological evidence and translations of contemporary sources where possible.)

Second, it is meant to counter the traditional narratives around violence, enfolded in a tale of progress, civilization and public order. Given what we now know, much of this narrative is flawed or misleading. The standard narrative of progress has to be abandoned in the face of the evidence.

Violence is culturally and historically contingent. One could go so far as to argue that violence is culture. At the same time, violence is independent of any particular culture, which is another way of saying that, as a phenomenon, violence is universal; it exists in all cultures across time; it is one of the few things that unites us as humans. As such, an act of violence can only be understood by unravelling the (sometimes deep) layers of history in which it is enfolded. The aim then is to write a holistic view of what various cultures thought about violence, how it was understood, and how it was performed.

The Savage Heart: A Global History of Human Violence examines the uses of violence from pre-history to the present. It is therefore a chronological treatment of history, touching on the main types of violence that can be found throughout the world and across time, dipping in and out of cultures and examples as required. It draws together a number of threads or themes across time, such as honour, religion, ritual, legitimate and illegitimate violence, power, race and idealism, so that the chapters become a cohesive whole. As the book progresses, I will focus on a particular period of history, but at the same time I will also delve into particular places, or particular sites of violence, as well as particular kinds of sources (historical documents, literature, paintings, film). The chapters also touch on particular groups of people (nomads, knights, peasants, samurai and so on), particular kinds of violence (massacre, rape, murder, revenge), as well as different scholarly approaches to violence. I will draw information and insights not only from a now large body of historical literature on the subject, but also from other disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, political science, psychology and historical sociology.

At a number of important points in the story, it will touch on debates about what is acceptable and what in not acceptable violence, the language of abuse and insult, the notion of “honour” as a universal driver of violence, and why homicide rates (and some other kinds of violence) have declined in the west, but not in other parts of the world. It will thus reflect on violence and civilization over the course of the history of humanity in order to explain shifts in attitudes over time, shedding light on long-term changes and patterns. Why is it that what was once considered acceptable in some societies – wife beating, feuding, slavery, corporal punishment – at some point becomes unacceptable in some societies and cultures, and yet continues in others?

Along with the overarching aims, The Savage Heart will confront some of the misconceptions around violence and the past. A more nuanced, historically sensitive view of the past is called for: gladiators did not always fight to the death; the killing of an individual in the Middle Ages was more likely to result in a fine than in capital punishment; and torture was only used in about 10 per cent of trials during the Inquisition. The past was not significantly more violent than in many contemporary cultures, but rather it was differently violent. That is, while most of the western world (defined here as western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand), is less violent today than in previous centuries, there are some parts of the world, and indeed some cities in the US and in Europe, that experience much higher levels of violence than in previous centuries. It is just that a different range of people used violence in different ways and in different situations, according to different norms.

Violence may have been at centre stage throughout most of human history, but almost every society in history (with a writing culture) has had extremely nuanced views and attitudes towards violence, even as they had a deep-rooted ambivalence about its role in society. In most writing cultures across time, people have thought carefully about violence and its implications. The aim of this book is to carefully consider those attitudes as revealed in both discussions and representations of physical violence, as well as examining the actual function of particular forms of violence at any given time.

This book reflects my efforts to uncover the patterns of violence across the world and across time. It is at the juncture of prehistory, archaeology, criminology, as well as history from the ancient through to the modern. It also touches on psychology and anthropology. As already stated, the predominant view found in most histories of violence postulates its overall decline from the early modern to the modern era through the use of two theoretical models: the state’s monopoly of violence (Max Weber); and the “civilizing process” (Norbert Elias). These two approaches have had by far the greatest impact on modern historical scholarship on violence, in part because they present the reader with a plausible, unifying explanation – violence is no longer as much of a threat as it once was, and the world is getting better. There is no need to critique Elias or Weber here, but I would like to cast the conceptual net more widely by combining three alternatives concepts. They are the “paradox of civilisation”, the invention of “civil society”, and the history of the emotions.

The “paradox” is that all civilizations, no matter how advanced, resort to extreme forms of violence in order to maintain or impose economic, social or political structures. The Roman world was also characterised by the grim spectacle of the arena. China during the Ming brutally suppressed revolts and rebellions. Britain in the 18th century, at a time when Enlightenment values were coming into their own, increased the number of crimes punishable by death five fold, from about fifty in 1688 to about 240 in 1820. Racism as we understand it really only came into its own in the 19th century, when slavery was abolished in Europe, and when Europe’s colonial domination of the non-European world reached a peak. Over the centuries, the state’s monopolization of violence may have led to a dramatic decrease in interpersonal violence in the west, but the state also became the key vector of violence in the 19th and twentieth century (the genocide of the Herero in German southwest Africa, the Holodomor in the Ukraine, and the Holocaust to mention but a few). We condemn violence in the street, but are comfortable with the notion of sending men and women to fight and die in wars. The “paradox of civilisation” is that cultures condemn some forms of violence in certain contexts, while turning a blind eye to it in others. To paraphrase Irene Silverblatt, violence and civilization are inseparable. They need each other, and they feed on each other. It is not antithetical to civilized life; it is part and parcel of civilization.

What mitigates violence is the creation of civil society. That is, the state is not the only regulator of violence. All kinds of everyday violence – from verbal abuse, to knife fighting among men, and even wife-beating in some cultures – are conducted according to socially agreed norms. But those limits and social boundaries can shift rapidly, sometimes for the better, but not always. How and why those boundaries change is key to understanding violence through the centuries. Most theorists of civil society restrict their work to Europe in the seventeenth and 18th centuries, but it is a concept that can be used to analyse societies across cultures and time. Most societies throughout history with writing cultures have discussed how to behave and how not to behave in acceptable ways. The key to understanding a particular culture’s views on violence is to be found on writings on the topic. But since violence is subject to significant chronological and regional variation, a comparative cultural analysis of how feelings and beliefs about violence shaped the social and political environment should give us some interesting insights into its development. The more people are imbued with a “feeling of civility”, the more they recognize the connection between civility and culture.

Finally, not only is it important to discuss what people “felt” about violence, but in particular what the victims of violence felt and experienced. To do so – sources permitting – I will examine the interplay between violence and emotions. Most of what we read about violence and the emotions is from the perspective of the perpetrator and is not particularly sophisticated. Elias, inspired by Johan Huizinga’s early twentieth century history, The Waning of the Middle Ages, believed that people in earlier ages were governed by their emotions, and that they had little self-control. For Elias, to be “civilized” meant that one could repress certain emotions like anger. Huizinga and Elias have had an enormous impact on the way in which historian have viewed both the emotions and violence in the past. A number of prominent, recent historians of violence, such as Robert Muchembled, Julius Ruff and Jonathan Davies, have also adopted this view. The problem with this is that there is not necessarily a causal link between emotions and violence. Of course, violence can be carried out in anger or in the heat of the moment, but it far more frequently the result of cold calculation. On the other hand, the impact of violence necessarily produces an emotional response of some kind or another – fear, hatred, anger – to the point where many of those who witness the violent act express their feelings as a form of psychological violence. The power and the perception of violence, as distinct from the act itself, is just as capable of shaping human actions.

This book is designed to be thought provoking, rather than conclusive. It will hopefully do so with insight, a certain wit and intelligence, and it will hopefully mark a turning point in the history of violence.