Description
Book SynopsisUnsparing and important. . . . An informative, clearheaded and sobering book.—Jonathan Yardley,
Washington Post (1999 Critic's Choice)
Trade Review"A brilliant diagnosis of the internal factors that hold blacks back." -- Wall Street Journal
"One of the most interesting examinations of poverty, violence and sociology to emerge in recent years." -- Boston Herald
"One of our best ethnographers.... Anderson is excellent in explaining how the criminal element, through a numerical minority, comes to dominate public space." -- New York Times Book Review
"Important.... [Anderson] demonstrates, time and again, how optimism, ambition and decency can sprout in the most unlikely places, given even the slimmest chance." -- Newsweek
"Eloquent and moving.... A strikingly powerful work that rings with urgency." -- Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here
"This is the best treatment we have of the tormented inner life of young people wrestling with nihilism in a society indifferent to their plight and predicament." -- Cornel West