Duty to Retreat

The original concept of “duty to retreat” was developed in Europe, specifically Britain, as a means to ensure the preservation of life. This “duty to retreat” (otherwise known as the English common law principle) is defined as a victim of violence must retreat or avoid said violence without retaliating in kind. Self-defense was supposed to the last resort. According to Richard Maxwell Brown, this resulted in a lower homicide rate. Unfortunately in America, these rates are reversed. In his book, No Duty to Retreat, Brown examines nineteenth and twentieth century America as it moved away from the “duty to retreat” and more towards the idea of justifiable self-defense and the right to stand one’s ground.
Richard Maxwell Brown is considered one of the nation’s leading expert in the frontier, the West, and the history of violence in America. Brown received his undergraduate political science degree from Reed College and his Ph.D. in history from Harvard. As a professor, he has held positions at Rutgers University, William and Mary College, and University of Oregon where he held his position until his retirement in 1993. In addition to teaching, Brown is the author of multiple books as well as numerous academic articles with his most famous being No Duty to Retreat which won him the Oregon Book Award in 1992.
The main argument that Brown presents is that this concept of self-defense and right to stand one’s ground was developed all throughout the United States – not just the traditionally violent Wild West. America, Brown writes, placed an emphasis on the individual and their property. Consequently, the “no duty to retreat” developed nationally – not just regionally. In order to emphasize this, Brown utilizes cases from Ohio and India...

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...vide a true in-depth glimpse at the shift in American culture to the “no duty to retreat” mentality. In order to demonstrate the growth in violence, Brown would have done well by providing statistics. Instead, no numerical values are given and the reader is left to decide if Brown is being truthful or exaggerating the rise in violence. Rather than making any correlation between violence and the “no duty to retreat” doctrine, Brown simply strings together unrelated incidents. Because of this, it is recommended that the reader use No Duty to Retreat as an introduction to the matter of violence in nineteenth century America rather than being an authority on the matter.
Reviewed by:
Lesley Keller

Works Cited

Brown, Richard Maxwell. No Duty to Retreat: Violence and Values in American History and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Amazon Kindle edition.