David Simpson is Distinguished Professor and G.B. Needham Chair, emeritus, at the University of California, Davis. His most recent book is States of Terror: History, Theory, Literature (2019).

Introduction
1. Civility and Literature and Their Discontents
2. Civil Beginnings
3. Philosophy Polite and Politic
4. The Displacement of Civility: Violence in a Widening World
5. Civility after 1989: Romancing Small Groups
6. The Reach of Literature