Kids see too much violence online/video games are too violent/TV is too violent/Comic books are too violent/Radio dramas are too violent/Dime novels are too violent/you get the picture!
Harold Schechter provides a timeline of humanity’s fascination with violence from the era of oral storytelling to “today” (2005). I picked this up for research for a project, mostly because I wanted to learn more about true crime media, but it was a very good read. Granted, he didn’t have to convince me, but it was helpful to have more concrete information than my usual go-to which is, “I saw Dirty Dancing when I was five and I didn’t turn into a sex maniac sooooooo…”
I skipped some parts that concerned animal cruelty, but that was easy enough as you could either see it coming or it was in an easily skippable section. Schechter does a decent job acknowledging when the violence humanity has craved has proved detrimental to marginalized communities. But mostly it’s a romp through a lot of old men yelling at clouds while their grandkids play various forms of war with increasingly techie toys. A fun quick read to indulge your bloodthirsty side with some light scholarship.
