From Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" to Joseph Conrad's "fascination of the abomination," humankind has struggled to make sense of human-upon-human violence.

Edited by two of anthropology's most passionate voices on this subject, Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology is the only book of its kind available: a single volume exploration of social, literary, and philosophical theories of violence.

• Brings together a sweeping collection of readings, drawn from a remarkable range of sources, that look at various conceptions and modes of violence.
• Juxtaposes the routine violence of everyday life against the sudden outcropping of extraordinary violence such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the state violence of Argentina's Dirty War, and organized criminal violence.
• Edited by two of the most prominent researchers in the field.
• Offers a thought-provoking tool for students and thinkers from all walks of life: an exploration of violence at the broadest levels: personal, social, and political.

Nancy Scheper-Hughes is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Philippe Bourgois is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.