NCJ Number
119368
Editor(s)
T R Gurr
Date Published
1989
Length
371 pages
Annotation
This book focuses on the issues associated with collective violence in America.
Abstract
Four contributors provide new evidence and theories about the sources of recurring conflict and the tenuous nature of consensus in American society. Other chapters address the belated emergence and decline of activism by American Indians, the steady decline of political terrorism since the early 1970's, and the recurring threat of violence from right-wing extremists such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Order, and the Aryan Nations. Three chapters analyze the 20th-century history of racial activism, reaction, and reform. A chapter that projects the future potential for violence in America contends that the recurrent failure of limited reforms to resolve fundamental demands for equity and autonomy for all the diverse groups that compose American society may lead to more intense mass rebellions in the future. The concluding chapter reasons, however, that an evolving cultural consensus provides political cohesion to American society, viewing group conflict and violence as part of American tradition because they have contributed to the incorporation of new groups and expectations into that consensus. Chapter notes, subject index. For individual chapters, see NCJ 119369-80.