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Land of opportunity : one family's quest for the American dream in the age of crack / William M. Adler ; with a new foreword by Waverly Duck

Author
Adler, William M.
Published
Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2021.
Copyright Date
©2021
Edition
New edition.
Physical Description
xxiii, 369 pages ; 23 cm
Additional Creators
Duck, Waverly
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Contents
Introduction: Homecoming -- Chapter One: Land of Cotton -- Chapter Two: Washing Windows in a Blizzard -- Chapter Three: Heaven Dust -- Chapter Four: "BJ, Why Don't You Start Selling Crack?" -- Chapter Five: Cool Hand Larry -- Chapter Six: Moving Like Lightning -- Chapter Seven: Marlow's One-Stop -- Chapter Eight: "Good-bye, Dixie Land" -- Chapter Nine: Too Windy for Tear Gas -- Chapter Ten: "We Rich, Goddammit!" -- Chapter Eleven: "Fuck It, I'll Fix Him" -- Chapter Twelve: All in the Family -- Chapter Thirteen: A Tale of Two Cities -- Chapter Fourteen: As Close As Brothers Get
Summary
"Part true crime, part work of urban sociology, Land of Opportunity is a meticulously researched account of the rise and fall of the Chambers brothers, who ran a multi-million-dollar crack cocaine operation in Detroit in the 1980s. Descended from Arkansas sharecroppers, BJ, Larry, and Willie Chambers moved to Detroit seeking economic opportunity, and built a successful drug empire by applying strict business principles to their trade; their business grossed an estimated $55 million annually until the brothers were sent to prison in 1989. Reading the Chambers brothers in the context of the fall of the Detroit auto-industry and its impact on the city's economy and residents, Land of Opportunity demonstrates how for the Chambers brothers, crack dealing was a rational career choice; and through the Chambers brothers' story, Adler provides bottom-up history of late Second Great Migration, deindustrialization, the War on Drugs, and crack era in both Detroit and the United States."--Publisher website.
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ISBN
9780472038633 (paperback ; alkaline paper)
047203863X (paperback ; alkaline paper)
9780472129317 (ebook)
Note
Original edition published by Atlantic Monthly Press in 1995.
"With a new afterword by the author"--Cover.
Bibliography Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 333-369).
Endowment Note
Paterno Libraries Endowment
View MARC record | catkey: 39306755