NCJ Number
167968
Date Published
1996
Length
370 pages
Annotation
This book examines the connection between single men and social disorder from the American frontier to today's inner city.
Abstract
The book examines the interplay of biological, social and historical forces behind the violence in American society. It argues that it is the activities of single young males, especially "surplus," emotionally unattached and societally abandoned young men, that accounts or the subculture of violence in America. In support of this claim, the book presents data from the fields of sociobiology and quantitative and demographic history, as well as descriptive historical documentation. Sections of the book discuss, among other topics: (1) biological demographic roots; (2) cultural and social roots; (3) the geography of gender; (4) the California gold rush; (5) the cowboy subculture; (6) the ecology of frontier violence; (7) women and families; (8) Chinatown; (9) migrant labor and the urban-industrial transformation; (10) the end of the male surplus; (11) ghetto violence; (12) the crack era; and (13) life in the new frontier society. Notes, index, figures, abbreviations