Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: 06/29/09
I was half expecting Going Postal to be a sensationalist history of the most violent of shootings in recent American history. Instead the book is a frank and curious investigation of the psychology behind these acts of violence.

What Mark Ames finds is that most people don't snap no matter how bad the situation is. An otherwise mentally stable human being won't rebel against a bad situation even if an act of rebellion would result in a better situation for himself and others. A mentally ill person though is far more likely to snap and he documents his observation with a number of historical profiles from history. (See Part II: The Banality of Slavery)

If you are interested in what makes people tick and what makes some people snap, Going Postal is worth a read. It's just shy of 300 pages with a lengthy set of end notes. While violent acts are described the are not sensationalized.

books | nonfiction | Mark Ames | 2005

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Comment #1: Wednesday, July, 8, 2009 at 15:34:06

Callista

Hmm that sounds pretty interesting. Psychology is very interesting to me.

Comment #2: Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 22:49:00

Pussreboots

I was suprised at how interesting the book ended up being. It is outside my normal sort of genre but it was really good.