"A comprehensive and tantalizing picture of the street gang culture that was part of the New York City mythology from the '40s to the '70s. [Schneider] knows his way around the streets and does a particularly good job of making sense of the drug plague that ended the original postwar gang culture... Schneider's understanding (if not affection) for the gang ... Read morestyle informs the work throughout. Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings is a sharp book about a peculiar moment in the New York life
one that seems strangely antiquated as we approach the new millennium."
Martin Jackson, Village Voice "[Schneider's] study of Manhattan youth gangs in the years after World War II blends academic disciplines with the author's recollections of the events he traces.Fascinating history."
Booklist "Superb. This is a marvelous piece of work: beautifully written, nicely organized, thoroughly researched, consistently insightful."
New York History "Drawing on countless sources meticulously noted, [Schneider] offers reasons for the emergence of gangs, shows us their particular culture, assesses intervention programs, and traces their decline in the 1960s and resurgence in the 1970s. Throughout, he augments his scholarly research with excerpts from interviews with former gang members."
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