ABSTRACT

Pinker’s 2018 work Enlightenment Now maintains his earlier commitment to Norbert Elias’ sanguine reading of post-Enlightenment human history. It replicates the problems that historians identified with his 2011 work, The Better Angels of Our Nature. Moving past Pinker’s theory does not, however, necessitate a rejection of theoretical or meta-historical approaches to the history of violence. Other recent works concerned with the history of violence offer rival theoretical positions and insights that are central to their success as works of history. Pushing past Pinker’s claim that Elias’ work is ‘the only theory left standing’ for historians of violence, this article demonstrates how theory has been used successfully by other historians. It interrogates the characteristic theoretical claims and concerns of four major approaches: new imperial history, comparative genocide studies, histories of war and society, and the history of gendered violence, and negates Pinker’s claim that no other theoretical tradition is appropriate for the study of the history of violence.

摘要

平克（Pinker）2018年的作品《现在的启蒙》（Enlightenment Now）保持了他对诺伯特·埃里亚斯（Norbert Elias）对启蒙后人类历史的乐观解读的承诺。它复制了历史学家在他2011年的著作《我们的天性更好的天使》中发现的问题。。但是，超越平克的理论并不一定要拒绝对暴力历史进行理论或元历史的研究。其他有关暴力历史的最新著作提供了与之相对的理论立场和见解，这些观点和见解对于其作为历史著作的成功至关重要。推翻平克的说法，埃里亚斯的工作是暴力历史学家“唯一留下的理论”，这篇文章证明了其他历史学家如何成功地运用了该理论。它询问了四种主要方法的特征性理论主张和关注点：新帝国主义史，比较种族灭绝研究，战争和社会史以及性别暴力史，并否定了平克的主张，即没有其他理论传统适用于人类的研究。暴力史。