Why has violence, and especially violence against women, become so much more prominent and visible across the world?

To explore this question, Rose tracks the multiple forms of today’s violence - historic and intimate, public and private - as they spread throughout our social fabric, offering a new account of violence in our time.

In this provocative and incisive book, Rose casts her net wide: trans rights and #MeToo; the sexual harassment of migrant women; the trial of Oscar Pistorius; domestic violence in pandemic lockdown; the writing of Roxane Gay, Anna Burns, Hisham Matar and Han Kang.

What obscene pleasure in violence do so many male leaders of the Western world unleash in their supporters? Is violence always gendered and if so, always in the same way? What is required of the human mind when it grants itself permission to enact violence?

On Violence and On Violence Against Women is an agitation against injustice, a challenge to radical feminism and a formidable call to action.