In the mid-1960s, looking back on a life of crime, legendary Harlem gangster Ellsworth ‘Bumpy’ Johnson told a reporter: ‘What else would you have me do? Go down to Grand Central Station and carry bags for dimes? . . . White people ain't left us nothin’ but the underworld’ (p. 104). Eric C. Schneider uses Bumpy's case and that of others like him to illustrate how social circumstances have historically played a key role in shaping drug and crime patterns in the United States. Drawing on previously published sociological studies, he traces the rise of heroin distribution in New York City in the aftermath of World War II, which was contingent, he argues, on structural shifts in the United States economy and the decay of urban neighbourhoods where drug use was most heavily concentrated. In the 1940s, heroin emerged as a drug of choice among jazz musicians and beatniks, as it represented a form of defiance against the rigidity and intolerance of mainstream ‘square’ society. In the 1960s, as America's inner cities went into decline owing to capital flight, government abandonment and the outsourcing of unionized factory jobs, heroin use became increasingly prevalent among the marginalized and dispossessed. African-American communities were worst hit, and ‘cool cats’ were those who bucked the establishment by making a viable living through the drug trade. Neglecting the social underpinning of the crisis, the mass media and government, including most notoriously Federal Bureau of Narcotics chief Harry J. Anslinger, exaggerated the scope of drug abuse and its ravages, fuelling support for the advent of harsh anti-drug laws. During the Nixon era, there was a brief focus on drug treatment, especially methadone maintenance, although many programmes were cut during the Reagan era. The War on Drugs, Schneider notes, has been most disastrous in targeting minority groups and contributing to skyrocketing imprisonment rates. In his view, a rational public policy should focus on creating jobs in deprived inner-city communities and working to rectify the social and economic inequalities marring American society. This latter recommendation makes much sense. The book is generally well written and includes telling anecdotes that help back up the author's major point about the importance of social setting. There are a few significant shortcomings, nevertheless. Much of the material has been documented before, and the research is not entirely novel. The focus could have been tightened. Schneider's discussion of global supply routes is especially inadequate. He fails to address in any depth the political developments shaping global market fluctuations and the shifts in consumer patterns accompanying them. Neither does he address the well-documented complicity of the Central Intelligence Agency in the narcotics trade, which represents one of the major paradoxes of the War on Drugs. Finally, his discussion of political economy is weak. He should have delved more deeply into the structural shifts in the United States and global economy affecting drug use patterns, as Philippe Bourgeois and Timothy Black have done in their admirable work. Thus on the whole, while Schneider's book is interesting and at times illuminating, the research and analysis could have been broadened to make it more definitive.