在这本富有挑战性的书中，当代著名政治哲学家约翰?基恩呼吁重新认识民主与暴力之间的复杂关系。基恩探讨了处于争议中的暴力概念，提出并回答了如下一些主要问题：为何说暴力是民主最大的敌人？为什么今天全球性的"暴力三角"正在诱使政治家动用不民主的紧急权力？暴力能否"民主化"以及如何"民主化"？自始至终，基恩优先考虑伦理问题，提出并阐述了清除过剩暴力的十条规则。（In this challenging book, John Keane, a famous contemporary political philosopher, makes an appeal for re-recognizing complicated relation between democracy and violence. Keane discusses the controversial concept of violence, puts forward and answers the following main problems: why the violence is called as the greatest enemy of democracy? Why the today's global "Violence triangle" is tempting the politicians to use undemocratic emergency powers? Whether the violence can be "democratized" or not and how to "democratize" it? From beginning to end, Keane gives priority to ethical issues, as well as puts forward and expounds the ten rules to remove the excess violence.）