“Politics of Defiance”: Uncovering the Causes and Consequences of Lynching and Communal Violence.

The article discusses lynching research, particularly the causes and impact of lynching and mob violence. It examines the research of scholar Michael J. Pfeifer, particularly his assertion in the book "Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874-1947" that lynching was a result of a cultural war between the working class and middle class and that rural whites weer ambivalent about the law's ability to constrain the social goals of African Americans. The author also discusses the study of the political dimensions of lynching.