<div>In her forceful social history, <I>Bullying,</I> Laura Martocci investigates how tragedies ranging from school shootings to teen suicides have focused national attention on a "bully culture" that thrives on humiliation. But how-and why-have we arrived at where we are, culturally and socially?<BR> <BR> <I>Bullying</I> offers a cogent analysis of the social forces sustaining various levels of ridicule, exclusion, and rejection. Martocci probes the destructive behavior of gossip, laughter, stereotyping, and competition: dynamics that foment bullying and prompt responses of shame, violence, and depression. She argues that these dynamics themselves contain the seeds of resistance to ongoing social abuse and psychological devastation.<BR> <BR> This book is a necessary wake-up call urging us to acknowledge the nature of the damage-the pain and confusion caused by shame, an emotion that we, as a culture, deny. Identifying shame as a break in social connection, from which victims require the possibility of "redemption" and reconnection, Martocci offers a novel perspective on bullying, one that builds upon social and personal supports for victims that are already in place.</div>