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When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era
Top of the pile
88
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
89/100Critics
88/100Scholars
Author:
Donovan X. Ramsey
Publisher:
One World
Date:
July 11, 2023
The crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s is arguably the least examined crisis in American history. Beginning with the myths inspired by Reagan's war on drugs, journalist Donovan X. Ramsey's work exposes the undeniable links between the last triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement and the consequences we live with todayâa racist criminal justice system, continued mass incarceration and gentrification, and increased police brutality.
What The Reviewers Say
Threaded through the four character studies are details of the era's politics, the crime bills that led to the drastic increase in mass incarceration, legacy media's insistence on sensationalizing crack and deploring its users, the ineffective War on Drugs and its disastrous consequences, and more, always in clear prose that focuses as much as possible on the flesh and blood individuals who were harmed by the epidemic.
Ramsey’s debut work of nonfiction is a master class in disrupting a stubborn narrative.
[A] panoramic social history.
Definitive.
