Deep Violence: Military Violence, War Play, and the Social Life of Weapons

by Joanna Bourke

2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the First World War, and with it comes a deluge of books, documentaries, feature films and radio programs. We will hear a great deal about the horror of the battlefield. Bourke acknowledges wider war is unending and violence is deeply entrenched in our society. But it doesn't have to be this way. This book equips readers with an understanding of the history, culture and politics of warfare in order to interrogate and resist an increasingly violent world.Wounding the World investigates the ways that violence and war have become internalized in contemporary human consciousness in everything from the way we speak, to the way our children play with one another, to the way that we ascribe social characteristics to our guns and other weapons. With a remarkable depth of insight, Bourke argues for a radical overhaul of our collective stance towards militarism from one that simply aims to reduce violence against people to one that would eradicate all violence. Her message is judicious and knowledge about weapons and the violence they bring has simply become too important to cast aside or leave to the experts.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Cultural, War

317 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 13, 2014

About the author

Joanna Bourke (born 1963 in New Zealand) is an historian and professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London.

Reviews

[Ruby Jusoh · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG, so inspiring! Took me only half a day to finish this! How can a book on war and military be written in such a compassionate and humane manner? 250 pages and I was so absorbed. Swipe to read my favourite passages.
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A lot of important issues discussed, the main one being how militarised our society has become. A lot of us justify violence as a way to uphold peace. She disagrees with this as violence leads to innocent lives lost. Moralist, yes, but very right. Military games and films are glorified, armed conflict presented as national pride. She argued that we must resist and resist we must. Each of her chapters were written in such a clear manner. Her perspectives do focus a lot on UK and US but only because she is familiar with both countries. The normalisation of violence, though, occurs everywhere.
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I feel so satisfied reading this. So hopeful. The final pages persuade the readers to never give up hope. Where there is power, there is resistance. Never bow down to oppression.

[Gabrielle Bakker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adored this book!!! An absolute bummer. So well written and well researched, I really enjoyed reading this even though it actively upset me.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a cultural analysis of the pervasive militarism in our discourse and our imaginary. It's saddening, but non hopeless.

As always, clearly and passionately written.

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long ago, when social media actually involved deep discussions, and used proper English grammar and punctuation, a friend and I had an exchange that went something like this:

Me: "I'd like to take a baseball bat to the head of any dude that assaults a woman. I'd call it 'skull-thumping,' but it probably needs a more therapeutically acceptable name, such as "cranial impact exposure therapy." (I was going through my MS in Counseling Program at the time.) "This way it's legitimized amongst the egg heads."

Him: "Ha, yeah, like 'collateral damage.'"

Me: "Yes! And 'democracy.'"

Euphemisms are the candy-coated language of carnage, and it's clear that U.S. culture is historically addicted to violence. Of course this is a human facet of existence spanning back to our primordial ancestors, and I reckon that it is sowed deep into our epigenetic makeup, but Bourke focuses here on Twentieth-Century-and-beyond U.S. and British culture, because it's admittedly what she knows, and because both nations hide beneath the thin and now tattered veil of civil and moral righteousness, if ever the illusions held up to any real scrutiny (i.e., Native American genocide and the institution of slavery, for starters).

This is a good read, but it could be better. Maybe for me she's already preaching to the choir of knowing, which doesn't make this such a shocking read, by a long shot. Are we violent, warmongering cultures? History says yes. Are we saturated with violent media, video games, militarized nationalism, and other forms of expression? Social studies say yes. Is mankind mired in aggression? Again, history, aided by anthropology and archaeology, all sing a resounding yes. Deep Violence is a perfect primer which should ultimately lead to a greater depth in research, be it through psychology, social psychology, and/or cultural anthropology. I could list a plethora of references here, but do your own to better understand the "human condition" as it applies to aggression, violence, and war-making. Such things cannot be ignored.

[Klara Abrahamsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Argumentet säger mer en vad resten av boken gör