The American obsession with violence over the past 20 years is considered, along with some of the reasons experts have given for the high rates of violence in the Nation. Four types of violence that have played a significant role in American history are analyzed: violence against Indians, lynch mob and vigilante violence, violence against blacks, and labor violence. Then two forms of violence prominent in American society in the 1960's and early 1970's are explored: violence associated with the civil rights movement and the violence of 'new left' radicals. Homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and rape -- the four types of violent crime listed in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports -- are then considered, followed by a discussion of family violence, a form of violence that has recently received heavy publicity. The most persistent and widespread violence in American history is concluded to be racially motivated and apparently designed to establish and maintain a socioeconomic order and geographical dominance desired by the white majority. A relatively rare form of violence is designed to establish a new socioeconomic and political order (that advocated by the black power movement and the new left). Such violence is yoked with self-righteous ideologies that justify the perpetration of violence against those deemed unworthy of humane treatment because of their perceived threat to the perpetrator's preferred socioeconomic and political order. Annotated suggestions for further reading are provided along with a subject index.