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In doing an Art History paper I found that this book was very useful. It really is an easy read and every chapter is just as fascinating, if not more so, than the one before. It is an amazingly colorful story about the deep rooted problems in a progressive America. Loved this book. History/Art History or neither. You will love this book.
A stirring and eye-opening account of days we Americans would rather forget. It's fascinating. It's part of who we are as a country, and as a people, and I recommend it. Its birth pangs were not pretty, and this book gives voice to that. It may take the modern reader some work to get into the flow. Nativists and hooligans and surging street kings full of booze and attitude, these earlier New Yorkers would happily break your arm off and beat you over the head with it---then string you up from a lamp post, for fun. New York used to be a place of riot and disorder, before it became a strangely beautiful and sophisticated international city full of diversity. Get this book if: you are interested in American history; you love sociological phenomena; New York intrigues you; gang behavior intrigues you; the human animal is a puzzle to you; or perhaps you just want to have a colorful read about some people you didn't know existed.
People seemingly from nowhere who had nothing suddenly had New York, and their neighborhood, and they weren't giving them up to immigrants without a fight. Reminds me of a lot of tomcats.the way we humans are when we have nothing and must fight for everything, every little scrap. Four stars rather than five, simply because it is well but not stylishly written. Worth it.
book is nothing like the movie and therefor is a large disappointment. This is no fault of Amazom or the seller of the book
Poverty was grinding and devastating; you almost can't blame the residents for turning to crime just to survive. Gangs picks up with the gangs around 1840 in the Bowery, the Five Points area. I first watched the Martin Scorsese movie of the same name. The death toll equalled that of some of the worst battles of the Civil War.
I didn't really enjoy the movie, but after reading the book, I can definitely see its influence. I became interested in reading The Gangs of New York after reading about the Triangle Factory fire and the influence of Tammany Hall in both. The book really takes off in its description of The Draft Riots of 1863. I do wish that in this new edition some updated information could have been added along with more pictures. Asbury's details about the gangs of this period are fascinating, and the characters are incredibly colorful.
The riots swept the city destroying buildings and nearly entire neighborhoods. It's hard for me to imagine someone named Ida the Goose as inspiring a gang war that left several men dead. The movie takes a few characters from the nonfiction book and shuffles them in with fictional characters and then dramatizes the whole bit. The compelling tales end around the turn of the century and become just recitations of murder and revenge without placing them in the context of the times. But along with Asbury's tale of crime, he also creates a heartbreaking story of the fight for survival in New York during this time.
Americans born here resented immigrants and the immigrants turned on each other. The book was originally released in 1928 so there are several outdated racist terms, and Asbury uses quite of a bit of bigotry when referring to the Chinese. Pictures are definitely required.
You don't even have to know too much about the city's history in order to enjoy the book. 286)).
We're introduced to a number of famous characters, from the mythological Mose with his superhuman strength, to Bill the Butcher, to the Whyo gang, to the tong wars of Chinatown, and to the Monk Eastman gang and Big Jack Zelig. The Gangs of New York is an introduction to the gangs which proliferated in New York, primarily in the notorious Five Points district on the Lower East Side, in the nineteenth century.
Also, the language itself is a little old-fashioned, and Asbury is blatantly racist at times (take this sentence, for example: "[The Bloody Angle in Doyers Street, in Chinatown] was, and is, an ideal place for ambush; the turn is very abrupt, and not even a slant-eyed Chinaman can see around a corner." (p. Although the book is introduced as a work of sociology, it's more a book of popular and cultural history.
Many of the tales Asbury tells on this book are based on rumor and myth and often it's not quite clear what's factual. The Gangs of New York is also dated in that the author will say something like, "such-and-such is located at such-and-such address, where now there's a such-and-such." The New York City that Asbury wrote about was obviously much different from what it is now.But this volume is nonetheless an excellent introduction to the gangs of New York City in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
I've always been fascinated with deviant behavior in history, and for that alone I thought highly of The Gangs of New York.
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