Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means by William T. Vollmann (2004-11-02)

The authorized, abridged edition of the 3,000-page, seven-volume magnum opus, which was nominated for the US National Book Critic's Circle Award. The LA Times has said of Vollmann: 'He has an uncompromising intelligence that will change the way you think about all of history.' In this book, a labour of twenty-three years, Vollmann will change the way you think about violence. Vollmann brings to this subject compelling logic, knowledge, research and authentic experience. His research is legendary. He has immersed himself in the hazardous worlds he covers and has put himself in harms way. He has been burned by skinheads, nearly frozen to death on the Arctic tundra, and almost blown to pieces by a mine in Bosnia which killed two of his friends. The history of the world is a history of violence. Vollmann looks at violence through the prism of ethics, and honestly addresses both its value and waste. Rising Up, Rising Down is Vollmann's meditation on the age-old conundrum: when is violence j