The biology of violence - Debra Niehoff

As scientists at the frontiers of neuroscience are discovering, violent behaviour is not simply a result of poverty or 'moral decline' but is also located in the way our brains work. The first book to examine violence from a biological perspective, THE BIOLOGY OF VIOLENCE does more than settle the nature versus nurture debate, it supersedes it. Debra Niehoff explains that the biology of behaviour is not a genetic programme but a process, a lifelong dialogue between the brain and the environment. Biology does not mean that we are or are not born bad, it means we are born vulnerable.
Niehoff brings together a wide range of research to show that we can understand behaviour in a totally unprecedented way, and that our ability to control violence has never been greater. She argues that neuroscience, including new drug therapies, offers cheap, effective ways to break the vicious circle that connects bad genes, bad environemnt and bad brain chemistry. This provocative book challenges us to live up to the opportunities that our scientific understanding of the mind has presented, and to institute policies that work with human nature rather than against it to change the aggressors and heal the victims.