Violence is a persistent feature of modern society. However, excessive violence, occurring unexpectedly and seemingly without sense, particularly challenges social cohesion by transgressing the limits of normalised violence. This book explores the dynamics of excessive violence using a broad range of interdisciplinary case studies, including: riots, school shootings, torture, extreme right-wing violence, and terrorist acts. It highlights that excessive violence depends on various contingencies and is not always the outcome of rational decision making.
The contributors to this volume also analyse the discursive framing of acts of excessive violence. Most people experience violent acts through mass media only in retrospect and from a distance. The book shows that it is essential to examine how those events are retrospectively framed, narrated and and therefore (re)integrated into the symbolic order of society.? It will be of great interest to students and scholars across the fields of criminology, cultural studies, and the sociology of violence.