Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has been much in the news recently, as veterans returning from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan receive treatment for a condition that had been rarely acknowledged post-battle (except perhaps as "shellshock" in World War One). PTSD, however, manifests itself on battlefields closer to home: in domestic violence; when police officers experience and witness violent events; suicide, nightmares, insomnia, and depression; and even within individuals who are themselves violent.

Since its inception, Lantern has concerned itself with trying to understand the roots of trauma and the violence that is its cause and effect—not only toward other animals or the earth, but to and between people. pattrice jones explores the issue of trauma among activists for animal rights in Aftershock. Rob Merritt and Brooks Brown examine the culture of violence, intimidation, and bullying that existed in Columbine High School before the killings of 1999 in No Easy Answers.

In Force Under Pressure and Stoning the Keepers at the Gate, police psychologist Larry Blum looks at the mental and physical conditioning required of police officers as they cope with highly stressful and deeply traumatic experiences on city streets. Myriam Miedzian uncovers the culture of masculinism that both fosters violence in, and makes victims of, men in Boys Will Be Boys, while in Ashes to Gold, Brad Fern and Tom Lutz explore the crisis in adolescent boys that requires a deeper psychological story-telling than simply imprisoning those who have unprocessed trauma and act out.

Perhaps no one has explored PTSD more exhaustively than Dr. Raymond B. Flannery. In several books, including The Violent Person, published by our sister company The American Mental Health Foundation, Dr. Flannery provides therapists and others in a clinical setting, law-enforcement officers, and the individual facing sudden violent behavior with knowledge of the mechanisms of human violence, stress at the breaking point, and the workings of the human brain.

Certainly, no book can prevent violence from taking place, but we'd like to think that these contributions—for professionals and lay alike—will help us understand and perhaps ameliorate the psychopathology of our violent world.