Customer Reviews

Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings

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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.

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.

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.

This book is an excellent treatise into one of the many fascinating eras of the NY underworld. The author takes you back to a dark time when Italian gangs fought Irish and German gangs, then united to fight Puerto Rican and Black Gangs, after which even Puerto Ricans were assimilated. This was a time when gangs were vicious but had not yet discovered heroine, crack cocaine, and machine guns; very interesting reading.

Very inspirational and illuminates very well gang life in the big apple. Helped me a lot for my own research.