From Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” to Joseph Conrad’s “fascination of the abomination,” humankind has struggled to make sense of human–upon–human violence. Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology is the only book of its kind available: a single volume exploration of social, literary, and philosophical theories of violence. Edited by two of anthropology’s most passionate voices on this subject, Violence in War and Peace is a sweeping collection that looks at various concepts and modes of violence. Drawing from a remarkable range of sources, the editors juxtapose the routine violence of everyday life–––what scholars Taussig and Benjamin have termed “terror as usual”–––against the sudden outcropping of unexpected, extraordinary violence such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the state violence of Argentina’s "Dirty War", revolution, vigilante “justice,” and organized criminal violence. Despite the impulse to distance ourselves from such acts,...