Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings [Hardcover]

Eric C. Schneider (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 8, 1999

They called themselves "Vampires", "Dragons", and "Egyptian Kings". They were divided by race, ethnicity and neighbourhood boundaries, but united by common styles, slang and codes of honour. They fought - and sometimes killed - to protect and expand their territories. In postwar New York, youth gangs were a colourful and controversial part of the urban landscape, made famous by "West Side Story" and infamous by the media. This is a historical study which explores the culture of these gangs. Author Eric Schneider takes us into a world of switchblades and slums, zoot suits and bebop music to explain why youth gangs emerged, how they evolved, and why young men found membership and the violence it involved, so attractive. Schneider focuses on the years from 1940 to 1975, but takes us up to the present in his conclusion, showing how youth gangs are no longer social organizations but economic units tied to the underground economy.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Historian Schneider, author of In the Web of Class: Delinquents and Reformers in Boston, 1810s-1930s (New York Univ., 1992), jumps forward in time and down the coast to examine the phenomenon of New York City youth gangs after World War II. Drawing on countless sources, meticulously noted, he 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 (including authors Claude Brown and Piri Thomas and 1950s and 1960s teen singing idol Dion DiMucci) and street workersAsocial workers assigned to work with gangmembers. Schneider's chapter comparing gangs of yesterday and today seems a bit cursory, but modern gangs are not his focus here, and his observations are still interesting. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.
Jim Burns, Ottumwa, P.L., IA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Schneider, an assistant dean at the University of Pennsylvania, is a historian, but he also grew up in working-class Manhattan. His study of Manhattan's youth gangs in the years after World War II blends academic disciplines with the author's recollections of the events he traces. Schneider examines social factors (economic change, migration of African Americans and Puerto Ricans into the city, and urban renewal and slum clearance), outlines statistics, and offers case studies of Washington Heights and East Harlem. He then explores such themes as "the centrality of masculinity in understanding gangs" and the gang culture that brought together gang members even as they fought each other; the various paths members took as they left their gangs and assumed the responsibilities of adulthood; and the effect of New York's gang intervention programs. Closing chapters consider the decline of New York gangs in the mid-1960s and compare the largely economic role of contemporary New York gangs with the social roles they played in the postwar period. Fascinating history. Mary Carroll

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 408 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (March 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691001413
• ISBN-13: 978-0691001418
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,083,287 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No singing and dancing, May 16, 2000

By 

Nicholas Noyes (New York, New York USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings (Hardcover)

Gang life of the 40's and 50's is so often portrayed in popular culture (West Side Story, Capeman, The Wanderers etc) that it's almost a shock to read about the reality of the phenomena. "Vampires, Dragon's etc" convincingly traces the history of the gang in postwar New York (although there have been gangs in New York since pre-revolutionary days) attributing their modern evolution to a mixture of factors including the influence of the institutions of the Second World War, and ethnic conflicts cause by migration and immigration to the New York area. Fascinating too, is the minutiae of gang life from fashion notes (the alpine hat was favored gang headware for a time) to gang philosophy.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The dark side of the American dream as expressed by working class hoodlums, April 16, 2006

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mojo_navigator - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York (Paperback)

I cannot imagine anyone ever writing a more thorough examination of the environment, causes and activities of juvenile street gangs in New York than Eric Schneider. Schneider, himself of lower-middle-class Manhattan origins, presents us, not with a vague cultural angle on the phenomenon, but an entire history of the changing economic and racial landscape of post-war New York and how street gangs were, in essence, a manifestation of that changing landscape. Gangs were a reaction to their underlying social circumstances and it is with this level of depth and rigour that Schneider has approached the subject.

He does cover aspects of street gangs beyond the historical/social such as descriptions of their own arcane culture and bebop-inspired lingo, the concepts of masculinity and the importance of honor to most boppers (an honor that appears to be impossibly out of reach to most working class male youth in mainstream society, both then and now). There's also a fine conclusion in which Schneider compares today's gangs to those back then and how the older gangs were (in his view, at least) a kind of de facto rebellion against mainstream society and values. Today's gangs, by contrast, are defined more as economic entities and micro-capitalist organizations than their honor- and turf-bound ancestors.

Vampires, Dragons and Egyptian Kings is an excellent analysis of the history and culture of New York City at a particular time in it's development and this book is sure to enthrall anyone interested in youthful reprobates in general and those that inhabited New York in particular.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is real, July 16, 2002

By 

Bob Maida (Westchester County, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York (Paperback)

My grandparents emigrated from Italy
to East Harlem, a neighborhood described in the book.
I grew up on East 112st during 50's and 60's.
Not too many books have truely taken me back
as this one has.
I see Mr Schneider's work as highly accurate
written to keep the reader's interest.
An absolute must for anyone that has grown up
in the inner city during that era.