The Gangs Of San Francisco
By (Author) Herbert Asbury
Cornerstone
Arrow Books Ltd
1st September 2004
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
364.10660979461
Paperback
320
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 18mm
225g
The fourth book in the bestselling Gangs of... series, by the author of The Gangs of New York, this time chronicling the criminal underbelly of early 20th-century San Francisco Herbert Asbury, author of The Gangs of New York and The Gangs of Chicago, turns his attention to chronicle the seedy underworld of San Francisco, from its gold-rush glories to its subterranean opium dens. Houses of ill repute play host to shanghaied sailors, and the Chinese tong wars rage around the city. San Francisco's historic past is here brought to life in all its scintillating and infamous glory.
Herbert Asbury was born into a strictly Methodist family in Missouri in 1889. His pious background and his subsequent rejection of Methodism greatly influenced both his philosophy of life and his career as reporter and author. Indeed, many of his books deal with the darker, seamier side of American life. He died in 1963 of chronic lung problems, the legacy of a gas-attack in France during the first World War.