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"Americans respond to most mass shootings with shock and grief," David Cullen writes in "Parkland," but "Columbine and Parkland provoked fear." It took Cullen 10 difficult years to write "Columbine," his authoritative account of "the first school massacre of the cell phone era." In that book, he presented an account of killers and victims, with especial attention to dispelling the web of myths as to why the two shooters went to their Colorado high school on April 20, 1999, to perpetrate what they hoped to be the deadliest attack of this kind in the country's history. In about 45 minutes, they killed 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves. Cullen's research took him deep into this tragedy, and he developed PTSD symptoms as a result. He vowed never again to immerse himself in that kind of calamity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Anger is the order of the day. Around the globe - from the cold-blooded killers of the Islamic State to Polish patriots fearful of cultural contamination, from Hindu chauvinists in India to immigrant bashers in America - resentment is boiling over into rage. Populist passions naturally target scapegoats that are local, so the variety is staggering; but behind the specificities of bigotry, Pankaj Mishra sees a general phenomenon. The story of progress guiding modernity assumed that the march forward was universal. When people feel themselves left behind, when they see that progress exists but not for them, they get very, very angry. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A few years ago Russo-American journalist Masha Gessen was back living in Moscow, having returned there to report on Russia's cyclically oppressive politics. As a writer and LGBTQ activist, she was anything but risk-averse, but in 2013 the Russian government was threatening to break up gay families like hers and annul adoptions by parents of the same gender. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]