Book excerpt: In the period from 1500 to 1800 the problem of violence necessitated asking fundamental questions and formulating answers about the most basic forms of human organization and interactions. Violence spoke to critical issues such as the problem of civility in society, the nature of political sovereignty and the power of the state, the legitimacy of conquest and subjugation, the possibilities of popular resistance, and the manifestations of ethnic and racial unrest. Violence also provided the raw material for profound meditations on humanity and for examining our relationship to the divine and natural worlds. In this, the third volume of The Cambridge World History of Violence, the editors examine a world in which global empires were consolidated and expanded, and in which civilisations for the first time linked to each other by transoceanic contacts and a sophisticated world trade system.