Abstract
This volume explores how individuals, groups and societies in a variety of cultural contexts, political settings and time periods respond to the perpetration of injustices. Approaching the concepts of revenge, retribution and reconciliation from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives, it opens a fruitful discussion among scholars of history, literature, psychology, biology, political science, communications, religious studies, law and philosophy. The book investigates how social groups reach and maintain an equilibrium between an emotional thirst for an immediate and unmediated response to injustices and societies' need to adjudicate measures and sanctions that seem proportional to the breech of justice.