Drawing on the author’s work in considering the problem of bullying from a public health, population-centered perspective, this essay reviews Emily Bazelon’s book, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy.

After summarizing earlier his earlier work on bullying, the author shows how Bazelon’s narrative approach maps nicely onto a population-centered consideration of the problem. The essay summarizes the stories Bazelon has chosen, and lauds her ability to distill complexity and to draw useful lessons from often-oversimplified accounts. He concludes with a few observations about the different approaches that Bazelon cites as having shown some success in combating the problem, and states that incomplete success is the best we can hope for, from a public health perspective.