{"product_id":"bloodlust-on-the-roots-of-violence-from-cain-and-abel-to-the-present-9781439100240","title":"Bloodlust: On the Roots of Violence from Cain and Abel to the Present","description":"\u003cp\u003eTHROUGHOUT HISTORY AND ACROSS CULTURES  the most common form of violence is that between family members and neighbors or kindred communitiesin civil wars writ large and small. From assault to genocide  from assassination to massacre  violence usually emerges from inside the fold. You have more to fear from a spouse  an ex-spouse  or a coworker than you do from someone you dont know.  In this brilliant polemic  Russell Jacoby argues that violence erupts most often  and most savagely  between those of us most closely related. An Indian nationalist assassinated Mohandas Gandhi  the father of India. An Egyptian Muslim assassinated Anwar Sadat  the president of Egypt and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. An Israeli Jew assassinated Yitzhak Rabin  the Israeli prime minister and similarly a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Genocide most often involves kindred groups. The German Christians of the 1930s were so closely intertwined with German Jews that a yellow star was required to tell the groups apart. Serbs and Muslims in Bosnia  like the Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda  are often indistinguishable even to one another.  This idea contradicts both common sense and the collective wisdom of teachers and preachers  who declaim that we fearand sometimes should fearthe other  the dangerous stranger. Citizens and scholars alike believe that enemies lurk in the street and beyond  where we confront a clash of civilizations with foreigners who challenge our way of life. Jacoby offers a more unsettling truth: it is not so much the unknown that threatens us  but the known. We attack our brothersour kin  our acquaintances  our neighborswith far greater regularity and venom than we attack outsiders.  Weaving together the biblical story of Cain and Abel  Freuds narcissism of minor differences  insights on anti-Semitism and misogyny  as well as fresh analysesof civil bloodbaths from the St. Bartholomews Day Massacre in the sixteenth century to genocide and terrorism in our own time  Jacoby turns history inside out to offer a provocative new understanding of violentconfrontation over the centuries. In thinking about the bad  we reach for the good  he says in his Introduction. This passionate  counterintuitive account affords us an unprecedented insight into the roots of violence.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45953192656949,"sku":"ByrdShop_1439100241","price":31.76,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9781439100240.jpg?v=1788181286","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/bloodlust-on-the-roots-of-violence-from-cain-and-abel-to-the-present-9781439100240","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}