A review by pussreboots
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond by Mark Ames

4.0

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.