Crack: Rock Cocaine, Street Capitalism, and the Decade of Greed

by David Farber

Overview

A shattering account of the crack cocaine years from award-winning American historian David Farber, Crack tells the story of the young men who bet their lives on the rewards of selling 'rock' cocaine, the people who gave themselves over to the crack pipe, and the often-merciless authorities who incarcerated legions of African Americans caught in the crack cocaine underworld. Based on interviews, archival research, judicial records, underground videos, and prison memoirs, Crack explains why, in a de-industrializing America in which market forces ruled and entrepreneurial risk-taking was celebrated, the crack industry was a lucrative enterprise for the 'Horatio Alger boys' of their place and time. These young, predominately African American entrepreneurs were profit-sharing partners in a deviant, criminal form of economic globalization. Hip Hop artists often celebrated their exploits but overwhelmingly, Americans - across racial lines -did not. Crack takes a hard look at the dark side of late twentieth-century capitalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108604543
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/10/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	568,866
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

David Farber is Roy A. Roberts Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Kansas. He is the author of numerous books, including Everybody Ought to be Rich (2013), The Rise and Fall of Modern American Conservatism (2010), Taken Hostage (2004), Sloan Rules (2002), The Age of Great Dreams (1994), and Chicago '68 (1988). He lived in New York City with his family at the height of the crack cocaine years and later lived across the street from a small-time crack distributorship in Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Choosing crack: an introduction; 1. First comes cocaine, then comes crack: origin stories; 2. Crack the market: commodification and commercialization; 3. Crack up: the cost of hard-core consumption; 4. Crack money: manhood in the age of greed; 5. Crackdown: the politics and laws of drug enforcement; 6. Crack's retreat: a nation's slow, painful, and partial recovery.

Editorial Reviews

08/05/2019

In this insightful study, Farber, a history professor at the University of Kansas, considers crack as a social and economic phenomenon in the 1980s and ’90s U.S. As Farber shows, for many young black men during the period, who were largely excluded from the labor market, selling drugs was “an economic lifeline.” Drawing on interviews, Farber explores how crack was distributed (in Chicago by gangs, in New York City by “start-up operations”); the violence it triggered as crack kingpins defended their territories; and the “conspicuous consumption” associated with both crack culture and hip-hop (some artists were dealers and some dealers were aspiring hip-hop artist). Farber also illuminates the policies made in response to crack, recounting how politicians of all political stripes, supported by a large majority of the American people, passed punitive, racially biased drug laws that treated crack dealers more harshly than cocaine dealers. Black community leaders were initially at the forefront of calls for strong measures against crack until they saw that the result was the imprisonment of record numbers of young black men, but the political popularity of the war on drugs stymied their efforts to challenge the punitive policies. This thoughtful, well-researched history highlights the futility of viewing drugs as strictly a matter for law enforcement while ignoring their socioeconomic context. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

'In 1980s mainstream culture, Ronald Reagan celebrated unfettered capitalist enterprise as the font of national virtue, global supply chains revolutionized the production and distribution of consumer goods, 'greed was good', the tabloids celebrated the flashy self-display of Donald Trump - and the rise of crack cocaine darkly mirrored it all. With great moral passion and flashes of wit, David Farber provocatively demonstrates in this riveting chronicle that while crack, in the awful devastation it wreaked, was a business like no other, it also was a business, like any other. A must-read contribution to the history of our time.' Rick Perlstein, author of The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan and Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

'David Farber pulls off the historical equivalent of The Wire, but for crack instead of heroin. A master of political and social history, Farber puts the story of violent urban drug markets right where they belong: at the intersection of buccaneering capitalism, dark-slide globalization, and America’s enduring divides of race and class.' David Courtwright, author of Dark Paradise and The Age of Addiction

'In the late 1980s, Americans came to believe that illegal drugs were the nation’s biggest problem. 'Crack' is an essential read for anyone hoping to understand why. This lively, well-researched history of America’s crack cocaine years introduces readers to entrepreneurial dealers, desperate users, and draconian drug policies. Along the way, it illuminates the era’s racism, political excesses and media exaggerations, as well as the lasting damage crack and crack dealers wrought in countless neighborhoods of color.' Pam Kelley, author of Money Rock: A Family’s Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South

'A great primer for anyone who wants to know more about how crack cocaine got so big in the United States … [A]ccessible, dramatic, and with a clear sense of how the drug blew up and fizzled out. The divide between those most affected by crack, and those who crafted the official response to it is the key factor in explaining why America’s war on drugs hasn’t worked, and Farber does a good job of bridging the divide.' Tom Feiling, author of Cocaine Nation: How the White Trade Took Over the World and Short Walks from Bogotá: Journeys in the New Colombia 

'This thoughtful, well-researched history highlights the futility of viewing drugs as strictly a matter for law enforcement while ignoring their socioeconomic context.' Publishers Weekly

'[A] riveting account of the crack years in America …' Sean O'Hagan, Observer

'And you put down 'Crack' with a feeling that this exploration of a dark part of our history has given you an improved understanding of today, and maybe tomorrow … There are no heroes in David Farber’s 'Crack'. There are lasting lessons on how not to handle the next drug epidemic.' Rich Lord, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

'… a scholarly, yet highly entertaining codex showing the solid economic stability reaped by crack dealers.' Darryl Robertson, Vibe

'Crack will give readers, especially white readers, a new perspective on what went on during the crack years and how it was handled. For younger readers who didn’t experience the time period firsthand, it piques interest in something that their parents lived through and have opinions on.' Amanda Salazar, Kings County Politics

‘In succinctly presenting a thorough look at the political, economic, and cultural contexts for the crack enterprise, Farber concludes that the players who decided to sell crack were rational actors in a culture of ‘entrepreneurial greed.’ In the end, we may begin to wonder how the dealer in the hood might be distinguished from the dealer in Big Pharma’s executive suite.’ Kim Hewitt, The Metropole

‘The social history of illicit drugs was lacking a thoroughly researched account on crack use in the 1980s and US historian David Farber has filled the gap with a concise, well-written and informative book that sheds light on a dark episode of contemporary American history, and further illustrates the link between racial and economic inequality and psychoactive substance abuse. The reading is at times absorbing, with some short biographies of crack dealers and users, which provide a fascinating glimpse into the underworld; ... In sum, this excellent tome will likely become the essential text for a contemporary social history of crack cocaine in the United States, and one that will hopefully spur more contributions, focusing on specific places in the country.’ Chris Elcock, Canadian Journal of History

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