The limiting of violence through state powers is one of the central projects of the modern age. Why then have recent centuries been so bloody? This book demonstrates that the aim of decreasing and deterring violence has gone hand in hand with the misleading idea that violence is abnormal and beyond comprehension. We would be far better off, the book argues, if we acknowledged the disturbing fact that violence is normal. At the same time, it contends that violence cannot be fully understood without delving into the concept of trust. Not in violence, but in trust, rests the foundation of true po ... More

The limiting of violence through state powers is one of the central projects of the modern age. Why then have recent centuries been so bloody? This book demonstrates that the aim of decreasing and deterring violence has gone hand in hand with the misleading idea that violence is abnormal and beyond comprehension. We would be far better off, the book argues, if we acknowledged the disturbing fact that violence is normal. At the same time, it contends that violence cannot be fully understood without delving into the concept of trust. Not in violence, but in trust, rests the foundation of true power. The book makes this case with a wide-ranging history of ideas about violence, from ancient philosophy through Shakespeare and Schiller to Michel Foucault, and by considering specific cases of extreme violence from medieval torture to the Holocaust and beyond. In the midst of this gloomy account of human tendencies, the book observes that even dictators have to sleep at night and cannot rely on violence alone to ensure their safety. These authoritarian leaders must trust others while, by means other than violence, they must convince others to trust them. The history of violence is therefore a history of the peculiar relationship between violence and trust, and a recognition of trust's crucial place in humanity. This book sheds new, and at times disquieting, light on two integral aspects of our society.