I thought the introduction was good and learned a few things in this book - such as "death porn" (very graphic images of violence) being shown regularly on the news in Honduras.

Apart from the few things I learned, I didn't like the book all that much for several reasons.

Firstly, many of the author's arguments were stretched way too far to be believable. She reads a lot into certain situations, and makes presumptions without even trying to learn about additional cultural factors that play into why things are the way they are.

She has a special disdain for evangelical Christianity and Alcoholics Anonymous (the organization's history is rooted in evangelical Christianity) and constantly harps on their supposed evil.

She tends toward arguing that personal responsibility is never the answer to violence, and focuses on a political, and "big picture" violence, and apparently never realizes that collective change is only possible with individuals taking a stand.

I realize this book is not intended for the lay reader, but I still felt certain parts were too pretentiously written. For example:

"My aim in employing the Foucauldian concept of subjectivation is to stress that this "anonymous, pervasive pedagogic action" described by Bourdieu is not a benign process of acculturation to be viewed within a framework of cultural relativism." (p 12)

Blah, blah, blah.

I'd rather read a less biased book where the author writes more to inform than to impress. ( )