The Weberian definition of the state is an institution with a monopoly over legitimate violence within a defined territory. Eager to explain the genesis of European nation states, Weber’s model is a poor fit for the history and experience of American statehood. What might explain the marked failure of the United States government to monopolize violence within its territory, and the historical and contemporary prevalence of violence in American civil society?

In his dissertation research, Hugh Wood, PhD candidate at Cambridge University seeks to find an answer. Using three case studies of private violence sanctioned by the state, expropriation and murder of indigenous people in the West, corporate policing and labor discipline in the industrial North, and the night riders and lynchings of the Jim Crow South, Wood explores the long history of bloodletting in American civil society. Wood’s project explores an essential element of American history with profound implications for the present.

In support of his work, Wood received a grant from the Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society at the Hagley Museum & Library. For more information on our funding opportunities, and more Hagley History Hangouts, visit us online at hagley.org.

Freedom to Harm: Private Violence and the American State, 1860-1895 with Hugh Wood

SPECIAL THANKS to my good friend, Australian new music trombonist extraordinaire, Simone de HAAN.

‘the Symphony Orchestra” 

some extinctions are sweet
see the saprophytic
symphony orchestra
where our much will have more 
is forever at war 
with the speed of sound
morbidly obese strip miner 
of the past with superb technique 
like the humble sex worker who 
mimics true love perfectly
sad swan-song of the beautiful
young conductor decomposer-in-chief 
baton hard sharp pointed erect
leading its troops straight into 
the motionless oblivion of moist muck
the happy food of hungry worms

IMAGE: An actual sign in SNAKE RIVER COUNTRY along the CANNABIS HIGHWAY, spectacular gravel mountain bike road from Richland to Huntington, OREGON

Freedom to Harm: Private Violence and the American State, 1860-1895 with Hugh Wood

Hagley Museum and Library

Related tracks