ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contains exemplary contributions on honor and shame in traditional European societies, from Late Antiquity through to the Middle Ages. It discusses honor and shame in relation to gender roles in Late Antiquity. The book explores how shame operates within the logic of blasphemy laws. It examines the unraveling and ambivalent nature of shame and honor codes in mid-nineteenth century America, using an instance of “dueling” in which a Northern abolitionist congressman was caned by a Southern pro-slavery congressman. The book examines how generational continuity has been a transmissive factor in the continuity of physical violence within the family. It notes that civilization’s crusade to remove shame from human interactions was something of a veil concealing the fact that liberalism required its own forms of coercion to enforce the benefits of modernity.
