Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2011

When incidents of extreme violence flare in America, all too often they are framed as isolated aberrations. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Christopher Strain argues in his new book, Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life. The unpleasant fact, as he reveals in this highly readable study, is that American violence is inextricably woven into the fabric of our national heritage and experience.

In Reload, Strain traces our modern-day conception of violence from the struggle to survive on the American frontier, through evolving gender roles in recent centuries, to the hysteria surrounding video and role-playing games and the more recent disturbing phenomenon of school shootings. Strain shapes nothing less than a profound meditation on American violence and a "primer" on understanding what can often appear to be a profoundly dangerous nation.

In addition to serving as a comprehensive overview of the state of violence in America, Reload also suggests ways of combating the trends that lead to tragedy.
1116803795
Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2011

When incidents of extreme violence flare in America, all too often they are framed as isolated aberrations. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Christopher Strain argues in his new book, Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life. The unpleasant fact, as he reveals in this highly readable study, is that American violence is inextricably woven into the fabric of our national heritage and experience.

In Reload, Strain traces our modern-day conception of violence from the struggle to survive on the American frontier, through evolving gender roles in recent centuries, to the hysteria surrounding video and role-playing games and the more recent disturbing phenomenon of school shootings. Strain shapes nothing less than a profound meditation on American violence and a "primer" on understanding what can often appear to be a profoundly dangerous nation.

In addition to serving as a comprehensive overview of the state of violence in America, Reload also suggests ways of combating the trends that lead to tragedy.
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Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life

Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life

by Christopher B. Strain
Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life

Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life

by Christopher B. Strain

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Overview

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2011

When incidents of extreme violence flare in America, all too often they are framed as isolated aberrations. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Christopher Strain argues in his new book, Reload: Rethinking Violence in American Life. The unpleasant fact, as he reveals in this highly readable study, is that American violence is inextricably woven into the fabric of our national heritage and experience.

In Reload, Strain traces our modern-day conception of violence from the struggle to survive on the American frontier, through evolving gender roles in recent centuries, to the hysteria surrounding video and role-playing games and the more recent disturbing phenomenon of school shootings. Strain shapes nothing less than a profound meditation on American violence and a "primer" on understanding what can often appear to be a profoundly dangerous nation.

In addition to serving as a comprehensive overview of the state of violence in America, Reload also suggests ways of combating the trends that lead to tragedy.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780826517425
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Publication date: 02/18/2011
Pages: 200
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Christopher Strain is Associate Professor of History and American Studies at Florida Atlantic University, and is author of Pure Fire: Self-Defense as Activism in the Civil Rights Era and Burning Faith: Church Arson in the American South.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction: Thinking Violence 1

1 The Violence of American Masculinity 15

2 Televiolence 38

3 Gun Crazy 69

4 Red, Black, and Blue 96

Conclusion: Rethinking Violence 113

Notes 133

Bibliographic Essay 151

Index 159

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