Sally Engle Merry is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Law and Society Program at New York University. Her recent books include Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice (2006), and The Practice of Human Rights: Tracking Law between the Local and the Global, (co-edited with Mark Goodale; 2007). She is past president of the Law and Society Association and the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology.

This concise introduction defines gender violence in social and cultural terms. Through personal accounts and ethnographic case studies, Sally Engle Merry provides a vivid portrait of many forms of violence in gendered relationships. Domestic violence, rape, murder, wartime sexual assault, prison and police violence, murder, female genital cutting, female infanticide, "honor" killings, and trafficking are all analyzed extensively. Merry examines major social movements and other efforts to diminish gender violence such as criminalization, batterer retraining programs, and human rights interventions.

Gender Violence: A Cultural Perspective challenges readers to confront gender violence as a social problem deeply embedded in inequalities of class, race, and nation as well as gender. It offers a highly readable and clear overview of what constitutes gender violence, its social context, and its history as a public issue. It is invaluable as a guide to this complex and important social problem.