The Six-Shooter State
Public and Private Violence in American Politics
Published on 18. October 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
284 pages
978-1-108-45414-8 (ISBN)
Description
American violence is schizophrenic. On the one hand, many Americans support the creation of a powerful bureaucracy of coercion made up of police and military forces in order to provide public security. At the same time, many of those citizens also demand the private right to protect their own families, home, and property. This book diagnoses this schizophrenia as a product of a distinctive institutional history, in which private forms of violence - vigilantes, private detectives, mercenary gunfighters - emerged in concert with the creation of new public and state forms of violence such as police departments or the National Guard. This dual public and private face of American violence resulted from the upending of a tradition of republican governance, in which public security had been indistinguishable from private effort, by the nineteenth-century social transformations of the Civil War and the Market Revolution.
Reviews / Votes
'This fascinating book analyses the relationship between, on the one hand, the officers and institutions who wield violence in the name of the state and, on the other, the people and social groups who hold dominant positions in society. If these two things do not coincide, the result is political and social instability. That sobering conclusion is supported by a wealth of evidence arising from a prodigious amount of innovative research.' Richard Bensel, Gary S. Davis Professor, Cornell University, New York 'Enhanced for academia with the inclusion of figures, tables, a list of abbreviations, and a ten page index, 'The Six-Shooter State' is a seminal work of outstanding scholarship and unreservedly recommended for both community and academic library Contemporary Social Issues collections.' Library Bookwatch 'The research is impressive, and the historical information included in the volume is extensive.' J. P. Dunn, ChoiceMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises; 19 Tables, black and white; 18 Line drawings, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
474 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-108-45414-8 (9781108454148)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
10/2018
Cambridge University Press
€119.80
Shipment within 15-20 days
E-Book
09/2018
Cambridge University Press
€26.49
Available for download
Person
Jonathan Obert is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Amherst College, where he has taught since 2014. He has published articles on violence, organizational change, and state formation in the US at Law & Social Inquiry, Perspectives on Politics, Studies in American Political Development, and the Journal of Policy History, among others.
Content
1. Introduction; 2. Jurisdictional decoupling as institutional change; 3. Bandits, elites, and vigilantes in antebellum Illinois; 4. Pinkertons and police in antebellum Chicago; 5. Racist vigilantism as reform in reconstruction Louisiana; 6. The violent careers of American gunfighters; 7. Conclusion; Index.