Civilisation of Violence? A Critical Reanalysis of the Premodern Sources

暴力自中世纪以来大幅下降的观点，已成为国际历史学家公认的叙事，通常被解读为诺伯特·埃利亚斯(Norbert Elias)发展的文明进程理论。这一暴力下降的命题是基于瑞士犯罪学家曼努埃尔·艾斯纳绘制的图表，他对数十项独立的地区性研究进行了二次分析。主要的衡量工具是凶杀率，即每100.000名居民中某一年的暴力死亡人数。虽然许多学者，尤其是德国学者，一直对这种方法持怀疑态度，但他们的批评似乎被边缘化了。如果说有讨论的话，那就是更多地聚焦于对生成数字的理论解释，而不是数字本身的验证。该项目将对用于绘制历史暴力事件图表的经验基础进行重要的来源修订。艾斯纳的数据将经过评估，并纳入分析方案，以便对其可靠性进行修订。它应该能够(至少部分地)以合理的确定性证明这一说法，即几个世纪以来暴力活动的长期下降。未来在历史和其他社会科学领域的辩论将能够围绕这一新的基线进行定位。

The idea that violence has dramatically declined since medieval times has become a well established narrative among international historians, often interpreted in terms of theory of the civilising process developed by Norbert Elias. This decline of violence thesis is empirically based upon the graphs produced by Swiss criminologist Manuel Eisner who undertook a secondary analysis of dozens of independent regional studies. The main measurement instrument is the homicide rate, the number of violent deaths in a given year per 100.000 inhabitants. While many scholars, especially German ones, have been sceptical of this methodology, their criticisms seems to be marginalized. If there was a discussion, it has focused more on the theoretical interpretation of generated numbers than on the verification of the numbers themselves. This project will provide a critical source-based revision of the empirical basis used to graph incidents of historical violence. Eisner's data will be assessed and entered into a scheme of analysis, so that its reliability can be revised. It should be able to (at least partially) proof the claim, with reasonable certainty, that there has been a long-term decline of violence over the course of centuries. Future debates in history and other social sciences will be able to situate themselves in relation to this new baseline.