Going Postal examines the phenomenon of rage murder that took America by storm in the early 1980s and has since grown more and more prevalent in body counts and symbolic value. By looking at massacres in schools and offices as postindustrial rebellions, Mark Ames is able to draw a continuum from the historical place of rage in America to the social climate after the greed-is-good 80s began to effect worker's pockets.
But why schools? Why post offices? Mark Ames examines the most fascinating and unexpected cases, crafting a convincing argument for workplace massacres as modern day slave rebellions. Like slave rebellions, rage massacres are doomed, gory, sometimes inadvertently comic, and grossly misunderstood. Going Postal seeks to contextualise this violence in a world where working isn't – and doesn't pay – what it used to.
Part social critique and part true crime page-turner, Going Postal answers the questions asked by the media and films such as Bowling for Columbine.