Cantitate/Preț
Produs
Total produse
Vezi coșul
L.A. Noir de John Buntin

L.A. Noir

Autor John Buntin
en Limba Engleză Paperback – 6 apr 2010

În volumul L.A. Noir, John Buntin demontează mitul orașului însorit pentru a revela mecanismele puterii din perioada de formare a metropolei Los Angeles. Putem afirma că lucrarea nu este doar o cronică a crimei, ci o analiză sociopolitică a modului în care s-a născut poliția americană modernă. Premisa se concentrează pe dualitatea dintre două figuri emblematice: Mickey Cohen, boxerul devenit lider interlop, și William H. Parker, șeful LAPD care a încercat să profesionalizeze o instituție măcinată de corupție.

Merită menționat că structura narativă urmărește evoluția orașului de la Prohibiție până la tensiunile rasiale din anii '60, oferind un context dens pentru ceea ce publicul larg cunoaște doar din romanele lui Raymond Chandler. Stilul lui Buntin este riguros, specific unui jurnalist specializat în politici publice, evitând senzaționalismul în favoarea unei documentări ce include figuri precum J. Edgar Hoover sau Robert F. Kennedy.

Comparabil cu A Bright and Guilty Place de Richard Rayner în ceea ce privește rigoarea istorică, L.A. Noir se distinge prin accentul pus pe transformarea instituțională a LAPD sub influența lui Parker. În timp ce alte lucrări se concentrează strict pe biografia interlopilor, precum Mickey Cohen de Tere Tereba, Buntin integrează criminalitatea într-un cadru mai larg al guvernării urbane. Această abordare este o continuare firească a preocupărilor autorului din The Beholden State, unde explorează crizele administrative ale Californiei, demonstrând că rădăcinile problemelor contemporane se află în conflictele de la mijlocul secolului trecut.

Citește tot Restrânge

Preț: 9294 lei

Puncte Express: 139

Carte indisponibilă temporar


Wish list
Gift list
Am citit!
Adaugă în listă
Doresc să fiu notificat când acest titlu va fi disponibil:
Trimite

Specificații

ISBN-13: 9780307352088
ISBN-10: 0307352080
Pagini: 448
Ilustrații: 16-PAGE B&W INSERT
Dimensiuni: 133 x 203 x 25 mm
Greutate: 0.35 kg
Editura: Crown Publishing Group (NY)

De ce să citești această carte

Această carte este esențială pentru cititorii interesați de istoria urbană și de evoluția sistemelor de aplicare a legii. Veți câștiga o înțelegere profundă a modului în care corupția și ambiția politică au modelat identitatea orașului Los Angeles. Este recomandată celor care doresc să descopere faptele reale din spatele legendelor noir, oferind o perspectivă documentată asupra luptei dintre lege și lumea subterană.

Despre autor

John Buntin este un jurnalist american de prestigiu, redactor la revista Governing, unde acoperă subiecte legate de criminalitate și afaceri urbane. Expertiza sa în domeniul aplicării legii a fost consolidată prin colaborarea cu Kennedy School of Government de la Harvard, studiile sale despre strategiile de reducere a criminalității devenind materiale de referință în cursurile de administrație publică din SUA. În L.A. Noir, Buntin își folosește abilitățile de analiză politică pentru a scrie o istorie narativă complexă, legând biografiile individuale de evoluția sistemică a instituțiilor americane.

Notă biografică

JOHN BUNTIN is a staff writer at Governing magazine, where he covers crime and urban affairs. A native of Mississippi, Buntin graduated from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and has worked as a case writer for Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. A former resident of Southern California, he now lives in Washington, D.C., with his family.



From the Hardcover edition.

Descriere scurtă

Other cities have histories. Los Angeles has legends.

Midcentury Los Angeles. A city sold to the world as "the white spot of America," a land of sunshine and orange groves, wholesome Midwestern values and Hollywood stars, protected by the world’s most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men–one L.A.’s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief–each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.

Former street thug turned featherweight boxer Mickey Cohen left the ring for the rackets, first as mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel’s enforcer, then as his protégé. A fastidious dresser and unrepentant killer, the diminutive Cohen was Hollywood’s favorite gangster–and L.A.’s preeminent underworld boss. Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, and Sammy Davis Jr. palled around with him; TV journalist Mike Wallace wanted his stories; evangelist Billy Graham sought his soul.

William H. Parker was the proud son of a pioneering law-enforcement family from the fabled frontier town of Deadwood. As a rookie patrolman in the Roaring Twenties, he discovered that L.A. was ruled by a shadowy "Combination"–a triumvirate of tycoons, politicians, and underworld figures where alliances were shifting, loyalties uncertain, and politics were practiced with shotguns and dynamite. Parker’s life mission became to topple it–and to create a police force that would never answer to elected officials again.

These two men, one morally unflinching, the other unflinchingly immoral, would soon come head-to-head in a struggle to control the city–a struggle that echoes unforgettably through the fiction of Raymond Chandler and movies such as The Big Sleep, Chinatown, and L.A. Confidential.

For more than three decades, from Prohibition through the Watts Riots, the battle between the underworld and the police played out amid the nightclubs of the Sunset Strip and the mansions of Beverly Hills, from the gritty streets of Boyle Heights to the manicured lawns of Brentwood, intersecting in the process with the agendas and ambitions of J. Edgar Hoover, Robert F. Kennedy, and Malcolm X. The outcome of this decades-long entanglement shaped modern American policing–for better and for worse–and helped create the Los Angeles we know today.

A fascinating examination of Los Angeles’s underbelly, the Mob, and America’s most admired–and reviled–police department, L.A. Noir is an enlightening, entertaining, and richly detailed narrative about the city originally known as El Pueblo de Nuestra Se–ora la Reina de los Angeles, "The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels."


From the Hardcover edition.

Recenzii

Named One of Daily Beast's "Favorite Books of 2009"

"Important and wonderfully enjoyable….A highly original and altogether splendid history that can be read for sheer pleasure and belongs on the shelf of indispensable books about America's most debated and least understood cities…..Utterly compelling reading."
ߝLos Angeles Times

"Completely entertaining….a colorful and entirely different take on the vices of Tinseltown."
ߝDaily Beast

"Echoes crime stylists Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy."
ߝAmerican History

"L.A. NOIR is a fascinating look at the likes of Mickey Cohen and Bill Parker, the two kingpins of Los Angeles crime and police lore. John Buntin's work here is detailed and intuitive. Most of all, it's flat out entertaining."
ߝMichael Connelly

"A roller coaster ride....Gripping social history and a feast for aficionados of cops-and-robbers stories, both real and imagined."
ߝKirkus Reviews

"Packed with Hollywood personalities, Beltway types and felons, Buntin's riveting tale of two ambitious souls on hell-bent opposing missions in the land of sun and make-believe is an entertaining and surprising diversion."
ߝPublishers Weekly


"Reads like a novel....almost impossible to put down. Buntin has written an important and entertaining book about one of America's greatest cities in the 20th century that echoes down to the world we live in today."
ߝBookreporter.com


"In this breathtaking dual biography of mobster Mickey Cohen and police chief William Parker, John Buntin confronts America's most enigmatic city.  For a half century and more, the chiaroscuro of Los Angeles, its interplay of sunshine and shadow, has inspired novelists and filmmakers alike to explore what Buntin has now explored in a tour de force of non-fiction narrative."
ߝKevin Starr, University Professor and Professor of History, USC

"John Buntin's nonfiction cops and robbers narrative about mid-20th century Los Angeles is not only compelling reading, but a heretofore unexplored look into the LAPD and the city it tried "To Protect and Serve" during one of the most colorful and tumultuous eras in the always provocative history of the City of Angels (and badmen). Dragnet, One Adam Twelve, Police Story, LA Confidential all rolled into one captivating book. Buntin nails it in this great read.'"
ߝWilliam Bratton, Chief of Police, LAPD


From the Hardcover edition.

Descriere

Descriere de la o altă ediție sau format:
The epic struggle for control of Los Angeles and the history of the 30s, 40s, and 50s in America's dream city. Now the FOX UK TV series MOB CITY.

Mid-century Los Angeles. A city sold to the world as 'the white spot of America', a land of sunshine and orange groves, wholesome Midwestern values and Hollywood stars, protected by the world's most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of 'pleasure girls' and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men - one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief - each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.

The Mob had to contend with downtown business (the Chandlers, of LA Times fame), City Hall, and above all the LAPD - and the story is gripping. In these pages you will find the kind of gangsters, cops, pols, and madams familiar from The Big Sleep, Chinatown, and LA Confidential - only this time it's non-fiction, a serious portrait of how the 20th century's most dangerously unaccountable, intrusive model of pre-emptive policing got started. It's a story with great resonance today.