Smack Heroin and the American City Eric C. Schneider Winner of the
Kenneth Jackson Best Book Award for 2008 from the Urban History
Association "A sympathetic, engaging, and highly readable antidote
to the war-ondrugs-style morality tale. At times the book reads
like the award-winning and controversial HBO television series "The
Wire." . . . Schneider draws his audience into a colorful narrative
complete with larger-than-life characters, heart-tugging tragedies,
and triumphant victories that complicate a more simplistic
rendering of what constitutes right and wrong, legal and illegal,
or mainstream and black market. He effectively humanizes the issue
with testimony from users, dealers, traffickers, police,
politicians, and educators to show how all parties in this conflict
have struggled to bring justice and security to their
communities."--"American Historical Review" "Schneider has produced
that rarest of academic commodities--a page-turner. The book is
exceedingly well written, and its fascinating research and analysis
are sure to make it a central text in the field."--"Journal of
American History" "Deeply researched and briskly written, with rare
photographs and biographical vignettes to keep the narrative moving
along, Smack . . . is a triumph of imaginative historical
scholarship, though a bittersweet one, written by someone in
obvious mourning for the drug-accelerated decline of America's
great cities."--"Addiction" "Schneider's absorbing history of
heroin's proliferation in America draws a parallel between the
evolution and decline of American cities and the rise of heroin
use. Rather than treating the city as a "backdrop," Schneider
interprets cities as 'the organizers of the world opium market, '
and meticulously traces heroin's ascendancy from early 20th century
opium dens to the 1920s jazz milieu and into the suburbs of the
late 20th century when heroin finally attracted the attention of
the mainstream media."--"Publisher's Weekly" "Since the end of
World War II, American cities have been home to illicit drug
markets where heroin has been among the most widely-sold products.
"Smack" is Eric Schneider's masterful explanation of how heroin
entered America's cities, who used it, what happened as a result
and how obtuse public policy and naked corruption not only failed
to check its distribution but sometimes even contributed to its
spread. Schneider exposes the deep misconceptions underlying the
nation's futile war on drugs and offers sane and realistic
alternatives that, historic experience suggests, could work, if
only public authorities have the courage and will."--Michael Katz,
"The Price of Citizenship: Redefining the American Welfare State"
Eric C. Schneider is Adjunct Associate Professor of History at the
University of Pennsylvania and author of "Vampires, Dragons, and
Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York." Politics and
Culture in Modern America 2008 280 pages 6 x 9 14 illus. ISBN
978-0-8122-4116-7 Cloth $49.95s 32.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-2180-0 Paper
$24.95s 16.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-0348-6 Ebook $24.95s 16.50 World
Rights American History Short copy: Why do the vast majority of
heroin users live in cities? In his provocative history of heroin
in the United States, Eric Schneider explains what is distinctively
urban about this undisputed king of underworld drugs.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
