Small paperback dealing with all types of collective violence, for use in courses on violence, collective behavior, social change, or social movements.

Cults, terrorists, riots, rebellion — these words scream at us daily from various media sources, but they represent group behavior that needs more thorough understanding. Collective Violence discusses and analyzes this behavior through the eyes of social change researchers and theorists. This book defines an important subfield in the study of collective behavior and social movements, focusing on the characteristics, history, and structure of violent groups.

The book is divided into four major sections: riots, revolution, terrorism, and cults/militia/hate groups — along with an introductory and concluding chapter and one focusing on general theories of collective violence. Each of the topical chapters includes historical and international examples of the behavior and explanations at both the individual and structural levels of analysis. Attention is also given to the methods the state and its agents use to control the behavior and to the need to deal with the conditions underlying it.