Bloody, proud and murderous men, adulterers and enemies of God brings together for the first time Steve Ely's recent poetry about violence. Addressing content that includes the First World War, the Falklands War, the Rwandan genocide, gangland vendettas, the violence of children and the process of colonialization that established the British state, Ely rejects simplistic responses, seeking rather to expose and understand the roles and causes of violence. Informed by a wide-ranging vision that takes in Pharaonic Egypt, York Castle, coal mining, American prison gangs, the Geneva Bible, neo-Nazi extremism, the Balkans' conflict and the English education system, the book's survey of human savagery ultimately finds hope in the potential of ordinary people to resist injustice and the coercive state.