Mass Public Shootings in Neoliberal America: Killing for Recognition

Why have mass public shootings in the U.S. become more frequent and lethal over the last two decades?This question cannot be answered by looking exclusively at the biographies, personalities, or mental health problems of individual shooters.Instead, to paraphrase C. Wright Mills, human behavior is never self-contained and must be understood at the intersection between the personal and social realms.Employing a sociological perspective and drawing from various data sources and case studies, this book offers a theoretical analysis of mass public shootings and the structural factors that drive these incidents.Our analysis highlights how neoliberalism-not simply as a set of pro-market policies but as an ideology and governing rationality-is linked to the mass shooting phenomenon in the United States. Since the late 20th century, neoliberalism has not only heightened economic precarity and feelings of despair, but also encouraged ruthlessness, ideological extremism, and the prioritization o