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American Homicide by Randolph Roth (Hardcover, 2009)

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In American Homicide, Randolph Roth charts changes in the character and incidence of homicide in the U.S. from colonial times to the present. Roth argues that the United States is distinctive in its level of violence among unrelated adults-friends, acquaintances, and strangers. America was extraordinarily homicidal in the mid-seventeenth century, but it became relatively non-homicidal by the mid-eighteenth century, even in the slave South; and by the early nineteenth century, rates in the North and the mountain South were extremely low. But the homicide rate rose substantially among unrelated adults in the slave South after the American Revolution; and it skyrocketed across the United States from the late 1840s through the mid-1870s, while rates in most other Western nations held steady or fell. That surge-and all subsequent increases in the homicide rate-correlated closely with four distinct phenomena: political instability; a loss of government legitimacy; a loss of fellow-feeling among members of society caused by racial, religious, or political antagonism; and a loss of faith in the social hierarchy. Those four factors, Roth argues, best explain why homicide rates have gone up and down in the United States and in other Western nations over the past four centuries, and why the United States is today the most homicidal affluent nation.

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarvard University Press
ISBN-139780674035201
eBay Product ID (ePID)86635631

Product Key Features

Publication Year2009
SubjectHistory, Criminology
Number of Pages672 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication NameAmerican Homicide
TypeTextbook
AuthorRandolph Roth
FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height235 mm
Item Width156 mm

Additional Product Features

Country/Region of ManufactureUnited States
Title_AuthorRandolph Roth

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