Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- I: The American Difference -- 1. What Americans Fear -- 2. Violence and the Growth of Crime: Some Lessons from Recent History -- 3. Transnational Patterns -- 4. American Lethal Violence: A Profile -- 5. New Perspectives on African-American Violence -- II: Correlates and Causes -- 6. On Causes and Prevention -- 7. Firearms and Lethal Violence -- 8. On Mass Media Effects -- 9. Only in America? Illicit Drugs and the Death Rate from Violence -- III: Prevention -- 10. Lethal Violence and the Criminal Law -- 11. Strategies of Prevention -- Appendix 1. Explaining Distributions of Violence versus Levels of Violence -- Appendix 2. Assault in New York City and London -- Appendix 3. Patterns of Three Violent Crimes in the United States -- Appendix 4. Race and Lethal Violence: A Five-City Comparison -- Appendix 5. Studies of Mass Communications and Homicide -- Appendix 6. Drugs and Homicide in the District of Columbia: A Research Note -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W.