Violence and punishment : civilizing the body through time / Pieter Spierenburg.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-220) and index.

pt. 1. Violence : Long-term trends in homicide: Amsterdam, fifteenth-twentieth centuries ; Homicide and the law in the Dutch Republic: a peaceful country? ; Violence and culture: bloodshed in two or three worlds -- part 2. Punishment and social control : Punishment, power and history: Foucault and Elias ; Monkey butt's mate: on informal social control, standards of violence and notions of privacy ; "The green, green grass of home:" reflections on capital punishment and the penal system in Europe and America from a long-term perspective -- part 3. Civilizing the body in human history : Elites and etiquette: changing standards of personal conduct in the Netherlands until 1800 ; Civilizing celebrations: an exploration of the festive universe ; The body's end: death and paradise in human history -- Epilogue: A personal recollection of Norbert Elias and how I became a crime historian.

This innovative book tells the fascinating tale of the long histories of violence, punishment, and the human body, and how they are all connected. Taking the decline of violence and the transformation of punishment as its guiding themes, the book highlights key dynamics of historical and social change, and charts how a refinement and civilizing of manners, and new forms of celebration and festival, accompanied the decline of violence. Pieter Spierenburg, a leading figure in historical criminology, skillfully extends his view over three continents, back to the middle ages and even beyond to the Stone Age. Ranging along the way from murder to etiquette, from social control to popular culture, from religion to death, and from honor to prisons, every chapter creatively uses the theories of Norbert Elias, while also engaging with the work of Foucault and Durkheim.