Cold New World: Growing Up in a Harder Country (Modern Library Paperbacks)
"When I first started going to New Haven," writes William Finnegan, "I  was taken on a tour of the city's neighborhoods by two black residents. Their conversation reminded me of others I've heard--in countries suffering from chronic guerrilla war."Cold New Worlddepicts the lives of American teenagers and young adults, struggling to hang onto what little they've got. They are part of a growing underclass whose lives have become saturated with drugs and violence. Whether he's talking to an African American drug dealer who plies his trade in the shadow of Yale or a young woman caught up in the feud between two rival skinhead gangs in the northernmost suburbs of Los Angeles, Finnegan brings his subjects to life on the page with a compassion that doesn't undermine any of his bluntness about their desperate conditions. You may not like whatCold New Worldhas to say about the state of the nation, but it's a book that you ignore at your peril.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.