Is violent self-defense ethical? In the history of colonialism, racism, sexism, capitalism, there has long been a dividing line between bodies "worthy of defending" and those who have been disarmed and rendered defenseless. That those subject to the most violence--the enslaved, the colonized, the oppressed--have been forcibly made defenseless raises, for any movement of liberation, a question: Can violence be used in the interests of self-defense?...

"In this essential new book, self-protection expert and former military intelligence officer Tim Larkin changes the way we think about violence in order to save our lives. By deconstructing our assumptions about violence--its morality, its function in modern society, how it actually works--Larkin unlocks the shackles of our own taboos and arms us with what we need to know to prevent, prepare for, and survive the unthinkable event of life-or-death...