Bernstein (philosophy, New School for Social Research) explores several philosophical and political perspectives on the meaning of violence. In an age saturated in representations of violence, Bernstein asks hard questions about what we mean by violence, what it achieves or fails to achieve, how different types of violence are related to each other, are some kinds of violence creative or what are its limits, and how is violence related to non-violence? His investigation is mostly philosophical and stresses forms of violence over concrete content. He draws extensively on Hannah Arendt's work. The subtitle "thinking without banisters" comes from her The Life of the Mind and in Bernstein's book refers to a rejection of both Cartesian foundationalism and its nihilistic negation in moral thinking. His reflections on violence also draw on major political theorists of the subject in 20th-century Europe, including Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmidt, and Frantz Fanon. He also discusses the "mosaic distinction" and religion in the work of Egyptologist, Jan Assmann. Distributed by Wiley. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)