In <strong>American Homicide</strong> Randolph Roth charts changes in the character andincidence of homicide in the U.S. from colonial times to the present. Rot... » 

In American Homicide Randolph Roth charts changes in the character andincidence of homicide in the U.S. from colonial times to the present. Rothargues that the United States is distinctive in its level of violence amongunrelated adultsfriends acquaintances and strangers. America wasextraordinarily homicidal in the midseventeenth century but it becamerelatively nonhomicidal by the mideighteenth century even in the slaveSouth and by the early nineteenth century rates in the North and the mountainSouth were extremely low. But the homicide rate rose substantially amongunrelated adults in the slave South after the American Revolution and itskyrocketed across the United States from the late 1840s through the mid1870swhile rates in most other Western nations held steady or fell. That surgeandall subsequent increases in the homicide ratecorrelated closely with fourdistinct phenomena political instability a loss of government legitimacy aloss of fellowfeeling among members of society caused by racial religious orpolitical antagonism and a loss of faith in the social hierarchy. Those fourfactors Roth argues best explain why homicide rates have gone up and down inthe United States and in other Western nations over the past four centuriesand why the United States is today the most homicidal affluent nation. «