Historische Kriminalitätsforschung
Literatur
- Gerlach, Christian (....) Extrem gewalttätige Gesellschaften. Massengewalt im 20.Jahrhundert. DVA ISBN: 978-3-421-04321-4
- Pinker, Steven (....) Gewalt. Eine neue Geschichte der Menschheit. Frankfurt: S.Fischer Verlag ISBN: 978-3-100-61604-3 The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Pinker was not the first to promote this new orthodoxy. Co-authoring an article with Pinker in the New York Times (“War Really Is Going Out of Style”), the scholar of international relations Joshua L Goldstein presented a similar view in Winning the War on War: the Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide (2011). Earlier, the political scientist John E Mueller (whose work Pinker and Goldstein reference) argued in Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War (1989) that the institution of war was disappearing, with the civil wars of recent times being more like conflicts among criminal gangs. Pronounced in the summer of 1989 when liberal democracy seemed to be triumphant, Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of “the end of history” – the disappearance of large-scale violent conflict between rival political systems – was a version of the same message.
There is no reason for thinking human beings are becoming any more altruistic or more peaceful Another proponent of the Long Peace is the well-known utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, who has praised The Better Angels of Our Nature as “a supremely important book … a masterly achievement. Pinker convincingly demonstrates that there has been a dramatic decline in violence, and he is persuasive about the causes of that decline.” In a forthcoming book, The Most Good You Can Do, Singer describes altruism as “an emerging movement” with the potential to fundamentally alter the way humans live.
John Arquilla 2012 also criticized Pinker.