ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the behaviour of the two indexes of violence: assault and battery and homicide, in nineteenth-century Germany and France. A gross comparison of assault rates in Germany and France at the end of the period suggests a link between violence and modernisation. The higher level of assault in Germany flies in the face of national stereotypes of the docile, law-abiding German. In neither Germany nor France do statistics of assault and battery lend any support for the argument that interpersonal violence served as a direct substitute for collective protest or violence. The correlation between proportions of young males and assault rates was almost as high as for urbanization. Cross-sectional correlations of regional homicide rates and levels of urbanism in Germany and France give conflicting results; the correlation was negative for Germany but positive for France. In both Germany and France, large cities manifested a greater incidence of theft compared to violence than did small-town or rural areas.