Media
Press kit
Everything you need to cover Toxic Tactics. For interviews, review copies, and assets, email info@lionessbooks.com.
Quick facts
TitleToxic Tactics
Subtitle79 Patterns of Abusive Language That Have Become Normalized in Our Culture
AuthorDr. Elana Sztokman
PublisherLioness Books
Publication dateOctober 13, 2026
FormatsPaperback and ebook
Trim6 × 9
ebook ISBN978-1-957712-25-3
CategoriesSocial Science / Media Studies, Communication, Political Science
Media contactinfo@lionessbooks.com
The book in brief
Toxic Tactics names 79 patterns of abusive language that have become normalized in our culture, from lying and gaslighting to shaming, silencing, and misogyny, and organizes them into seven families. Each tactic is defined, illustrated with real examples, and paired with tools for recognizing and defusing it. Once you can name a tactic, it loses its power over you.
About the author
Dr. Elana Sztokman is an award-winning Jewish feminist anthropologist, author, educator, and activist, and a two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award. Toxic Tactics is her eighth book. She writes the Substack The Roar, co-hosts the peace podcast Women Ending War, and lives and works in Israel. More at elanasztokman.net.
Suggested interview topics
- How abusive language went from private relationships to politics and media
- Why naming a tactic takes away its power
- The link between domestic abuse and public, political manipulation
- How to recognize and defuse toxic tactics in everyday life
Early praise
This book is a wonderful antidote to the last few years’ stunning decline in U.S. and Israeli public discourse. Elana Sztokman brilliantly identifies and explains dozens of ‘toxic’ rhetorical tactics, a vital effort since, as she writes, naming the tactics restores clarity. Sztokman’s latest book offers the light of new understanding, in a time of confusion and despair.
Susan Benesch
Founding Director, the Dangerous Speech Project; Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University
Toxic Tactics is a breath of fresh air in a toxic atmosphere. Sztokman demonstrates that the abuse we think of as distinctly private, such as domestic violence against women, is in reality profoundly linked to the broadest societal, power-oriented behavior. Her analysis provides a huge boost of clarity to help the rest of us fight back.
Lundy Bancroft
Author of Why Does He Do That?
In this impressively researched guide to the language of manipulation, bullying, and abuse, Elana Sztokman draws on a vast range of scholarship in psychology, linguistics, political science, and history. She offers readers both a field guide and a vocabulary for recognizing toxic rhetoric, showing how it erodes both human relationships and democracy. This is a deeply reported, urgently relevant book.
Marjorie Ingall
Co-author of Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies
A thorough analysis of the abusive language soaking our psyches from every quarter. Toxic Tactics explains how we ended up drowning in a sea of lies and vicious propaganda, yet Elana concludes with hope, by offering us practical tools to resist the deluge. All we have to do is use them.
Jeannette Friedman
Editor in Chief, The Wordsmithy
