Books in the The Cultures and Practice of Violence series

In 1550, the German adventurer Hans Staden was serving as a gunner in a Portuguese fort on the Brazilian coast. This title tells the story of his nine-month captivity among the Tupi Indians. It presents a dramatic first-person account of his capture, captivity, and eventual escape.

An ethnographic examination of how northern Ugandans understand and attempt to control their moral universe and material circumstances in the midst of civil war.

A collection exploring how individuals and institutions in contemporary Latin American democracies use violence to impose and contest notions of order, rights, citizenship, and justice.

Addressing the organization and outfitting of conquest expeditions, this title includes extended discussions of arms and medicine. It covers the proper behaviour of soldiers, providing advice on marching through peaceful and bellicose territories, crossing rivers, bivouacking in foul weather, and carrying out night raids and ambushes.

The contributors to this provocative collection scrutinize the relations between anthropology and contemporary global war, contending that modern high-tech warfare is analogous to rituals of magic and sorcery, and examining the U.S. military's exploitation of ethnographic research.

The contributors to this provocative collection scrutinize the relations between anthropology and contemporary global war, contending that modern high-tech warfare is analogous to rituals of magic and sorcery, and examining the U.S. military's exploitation of ethnographic research.

Asks what happens when perpetrators publicly admit or discuss their actions. This book contends that public confessions do not settle the past. It argues that this debate and the public confessions that trigger it are healthy for democratic processes of political participation, freedom of expression, and contestation of political ideas.

Claims that there is a cultural logic to Palestinian suicide bombings, and that these acts can neither be understood nor effectively countered without taking this into account. This title illuminates the Palestinians' perspective on the conflict with Israel and provides a model for ethnographers seeking to make sense of political violence.

Leading anthropologists consider issues of truth, memory, and representation in the aftermath of genocides in the Balkans, Guatemala, Indonesia, East Timor, Germany, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan.

This vivid ethnographic account of the first peaceful encounters between the Wari Indians of western Brazil and missionaries and government workers emphasizes how the Wari perceived the interactions.

Leading anthropologists consider issues of truth, memory, and representation in the aftermath of genocides in the Balkans, Guatemala, Indonesia, East Timor, Germany, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan.

Offering bold new perspectives on the politics of memory in Latin America, scholars analyze the memory markets in six countries that emerged from authoritarian rule in the 1980s and 1990s.

Based on ethnographic research among militias in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Danny Hoffman considers how young men are made available for violent labor on battlefields and in dangerous unregulated industries.

Offering bold new perspectives on the politics of memory in Latin America, scholars analyze the memory markets in six countries that emerged from authoritarian rule in the 1980s and 1990s.

An ethnography examining how indigenous residents of crime-ridden, marginalized neighborhoods in Cochabamba, Bolivia, struggle to balance human rights with their need for safety and security.

Analyzes how the rhetoric of Yugoslav intellectuals and politicians and the U.S.-led Western media and political leadership framed the serbs as metaphorical vampires in the last decades of the twentieth century.