Crack

This book is the first real synthesis of the “crack era” in U.S. drug history. It is framed by thoughtful analysis, lucid writing, and good use of mostly ethnographic and sociological scholarship. David Farber's thesis may not seem that startling to experts. From the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, the devastating swath that crack cocaine slashed through predominantly African American urban neighborhoods signaled the dark underside of Ronald Reagan–era entrepreneurial greed and urban neglect. Farber basically treats crack as a “commodity,” illicitly retailed by young African American and Latino entrepreneurs left out of Reagan's official “neo-liberal” market boom. Farber's clear narrative leads readers from the prehistory of legal and illegal powder cocaine, the discovery and spread of crack in the early 1980s, its consumption mores and impacts on urban social groups (residents of declining neighborhoods, minorities, young women); the influence of crack fortunes, styles, and masculinities on culture, notably hip-hop; and the

Art · Capitalism · Commodity · Consumption (sociology · Crack cocaine · Criminology · Economic history · Economics · Literature · Market economy · Mores · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Social science · Sociology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · History · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk · Law · Psychology