Title: The Abridged Edition
Review: I have to admit that I felt daunted by the seven volumes of this book and bought the abridged edition. It is astounding! What I found most valuable is not the specific rules Vollmann lays out for deciding whether violence is justified or not, but the detailed and thoughtful examinations of specific historical events and people: the American Civil War, the Holocaust, the ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia; Napoleon, Stalin, Gandhi, and, most importantly, ordinary people who were victims or perpetrators of violence. Vollmann's writing is precise and eloquent and carries you so seamlessly from one page to the next that you don't realize until it's too late that you've reached the end of this 700-page volume. (And then you feel compelled to get your hands on the unabridged edition.) This is an immensely useful and revelatory book.
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