PREVIOUS ARTICLE ALL CONTENTS Next ARTICLE

The Roots of Violent Crime in America: From the Gilded Age through the Great Depression, Barry Latzer

Reviewed by Lisa L. Miller

BUY

 

The central argument of Barry Latzer's The Roots of Violence Crime in America is that high rates of violence in the United States, and their ebb and flow across time and place, can be explained largely by subcultures of violence that both tolerate and encourage violent self-help. These cultures were imported to the United States by various immigrant groups, mainly the Scots-Irish in the south; Italian, Irish, and Black migrants in the north (Black Americans having learned violence from southern Whites); and Mexicans and, to a lesser degree, Chinese, in the west. Latzer draws on a combination of primary and secondary data, including arrest, conviction, and imprisonment reports, as well as census data, and focuses on regional comparisons, along with several northern and west coast cities, from the late nineteenth century through the Great Depression. Latzer is careful to acknowledge the limitations of the data and makes a concerted effort to triangulate from multiple sources.

Latzer's basic thesis is worthy of consideration. Violence can flourish when people resort to violent self-help to resolve disputes. That some cultural contexts—the Scots-Irish in the south, for example—display a legitimation of such violence is plausible. This seems most likely in contexts where formal institutions for resolving conflicts are weak, nonexistent,

To continue reading, see options above.

About PSQ's Editor

ROBERT Y. SHAPIRO

Full Access

Join the Academy of Political Science and automatically receive Political Science Quarterly.

CONFERENCES & EVENTS

Academy Forum | Latino Voters, Demographic Determinism, and the Myth of an Inevitable Democratic Party Majority
October 9, 2024
4:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. ET
WEBINAR

MORE ABOUT THIS EVENT VIEW ALL EVENTS

Editor’s spotlight

Virtual Issue

Introduction: Black Power and the Civil Rights Agendas of Charles V. Hamilton
Marylena Mantas and Robert Y. Shapiro

MORE ABOUT THIS TOPIC

Search the Archives

Publishing since 1886, PSQ is the most widely read and accessible scholarly journal with distinguished contributors such as: Lisa Anderson, Robert A. Dahl, Samuel P. Huntington, Robert Jervis, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Theda Skocpol, Woodrow Wilson

view additional issues

Most read

Articles | Book reviews

Understanding the Bush Doctrine
Robert Jervis

The Study of Administration
Woodrow Wilson

Notes on Roosevelt's "Quarantine" Speech
Dorothy Borg

view all

New APS Book

Political Conflict in American Politics   POLITICAL CONFLICT IN AMERICAN POLITICS

About US

Academy of Political Science

The Academy of Political Science, promotes objective, scholarly analyses of political, social, and economic issues. Through its conferences and publications APS provides analysis and insight into both domestic and foreign policy issues.

Political Science Quarterly

With neither an ideological nor a partisan bias, PSQ looks at facts and analyzes data objectively to help readers understand what is really going on in national and world affairs.

Stay Connected

newsstand locator
About APS