The despair and incomprehension that often seem to be the only possible response to acts of aggression and violence have led to attempts by academics and writers from a wide variety of backgrounds to understand and explain such behaviour. The concern and anxiety that is felt by many people about this subject is such that some of their accounts – notably by Konrad Lorenz, Desmond Morris, Robert Ardrey, and Anthony Storr – have become popular and even best-selling books. Originally published in 1985, Accounting for Aggression provides a comprehensive synthesis and assessment of these writings and other contemporary theory and research on aggression and violence at the time.

The author presents a variety of accounts of aggression, drawing on original work in the areas of biology, sociobiology, ethology, psychology and sociology. Each account is evaluated according both to the criteria of scientific methodology and to the extent to which it illuminates our understanding and appears to have a lasting explanatory value. In the last chapter the author presents an integrative approach to the subject area which synthesizes those findings for which there appears to be substantial empirical support, within a framework of the meaning that aggressive and violent behaviour offers to those who carry it out.

Accounting for Aggression will be of great value to students and practitioners in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, social work and education. Furthermore, it will be welcomed by interested members of the general public who are concerned with issues such as whether or not violence is inherent in human nature, the extent to which interpersonal violence is related to group violence, and the extent to which violence in the media affects violent behaviour.