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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Review
"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 World depicts 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 what Cold New World has to say about the state of the nation, but it's a book that you ignore at your peril.

Product Description
New Yorker writer William Finnegan spent time with families in four communities across America and became an intimate observer of the lives he reveals in these beautifully rendered portraits: a fifteen-year-old drug dealer in blighted New Haven, Connecticut; a sleepy Texas town transformed by crack; Mexican American teenagers in Washington State, unable to relate to their immigrant parents and trying to find an identity in gangs; jobless young white supremacists in a downwardly mobile L.A. suburb. Important, powerful, and compassionate, Cold New World gives us an unforgettable look into a present that presages our future.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
A Los Angeles Times Best Nonfiction of 1998 selection
One of the Voice Literary Supplement's Twenty-five Favorite Books of 1998

Customer Reviews: Read 7 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Would love to see an update for US status in 2008! May 3, 2008
A very valuable source for social conditions in the US prior to 1999. But would really love to see an update that shows how conditions have worsened and widened in the U.S. since its publication. I'm a 55-yr-old victim of the mortgage industry (calculatedly fired after 17 yrs, following Co outsourcing and regular layoffs; wages stagnant for last 5 yrs while cost of living at least +9% per yr), now unemployed for almost a year (no one's hiring), no health insurance, my husband had to transition from auto mechanic to truck driving to keep us from homelessness and finds it over-regulated and more costly to him personally than it's worth ($6,000 for a CDL-A license plus weekly seems to get hit with hard-to-avoid high fines and tickets out of pocket; on the road for weeks at a time). Am convinced that only today's seniors have actually known the American Dream (perhaps they suffered - as unaware children - with the Depression, but later all uphill for them, with pandering for their votes via senior discounts and 5,000% returns on their own SS contributions, not to mention far earlier retirements than we can expect). Many of the Babyboomers' deluded policies when they took over politics, universities, and media only worsened conditions for us all. Who whudda thunk it'd get so much worse?

5 out of 5 stars

Exhilirating February 27, 2007
It is hard to overstate how much I liked this book.

Finnegan reports on young Americans living in compromised circumstances. He could probably have found this story in any community. He chose four places -- the inner city of New Haven, rural Texas, a California exurb, and the farm fields of Washington state.

In New Haven, you see the logic of the choices faced by inner city kids, and the struggle to get by in a world where so many people have so much. That first section is good, but its probably also the one with a theme that matches the expectations of readers.

The rest of the story is more complicated. In rural Texas, Finnegan shows a system of justice dominated by local sheriffs that serve to balance the interests of everyone in a pothole politics that reminds me of Chicago aldermen. It also shows the footprint of race upon land use.

In Washington state, the young people fail to understand the social justice aspirations of their migrant farmworkers parents. These kids don't feel that they belong anywhere: not in the consumerist schools of Washington state, and certainly not in the underdeveloped cinder block streets of their parent's Mexico.

In California, Finnegan shows how economic insecurity among parents trickles down into distorted opinions about race among a group of white power youth.

Finnegan uses a first person narrative approach that allows him to report and analyze what he sees as he travels. The analysis helps him to weave in local politics, history, and even some academic research. He does not interject his opinion into his writing, at least until the end of the book when he offers a conclusion.

When I think of peers for this book, a few come to mind: "There are No Children Here," by Alex Kotlowitz and "A Hope in the Unseen" by Ron Suskind are the two that most match its power. Even so, going to four places so different is a bit harder. Like catching lighting four times.

5 out of 5 stars

Had to read this book for college October 14, 2005
Bill Finnegan is a real journalist. He is the kind that goes to place we only read about in news briefs in a paper's international section. The kind of places we'd rather not know too much about.

In this book (more like a collection of four books) he stays stateside and tries to find out about what the future holds for the youth of America.

From poor rural farmers in the Big Piney region of east Texas to kids stuck in the violent racist/anti-racist punk rock scene of southern California, Finnegan sticks himself into the lives of his subjects, living with them for monthes at a time.

He tries and I think succeeds on gainging insight into what it is like to be raised in working class America.

The book is heavy, and can be a bit of an emotional drain but it leaves you armed with perspective.

5 out of 5 stars

Highly Recommended Sociological Study of the Real America September 21, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

William Finnegan's study of American 'underclasses' is hardly scientific in the traditional sense, yet a reading of this book will certainly earn the reader's respect for its depth and the amount of physical area it touches upon across the U.S. Finnegan gets so deep in these peoples' lives over the six years he took to gather these stories that he can describe the situations to perfection. His familiarity with the people in these stories is very clear, he was obviously not afraid to spend ample time with them. The four stories he comes back with, which make up this book, are precious nuggets of the reality facing so much youth in America right now. Finnegan always brings it back to the youth, and how the circumstances being constucted for them in this society will effect them. How are they reacting? Read the book and find out.

4 out of 5 stars

Down and Out in the U.S.A. October 2, 2004
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

This mix of sociology and journalism is a mostly gripping and always harrowing journey to the four corners of the American underclass. During the early to mid-1990s, Finnegan spent time with four young people in from very different geographic locations and of very different cultural backgrounds. Each of these are detailed in 50-100 page sections, followed by a surprisingly brief coda, in which he attempts to sum up the similarities between the four cases and draw some prescriptions from them. This is that rarest of books, an in-depth, complex examination of class in America.

Finnegan starts in New Haven with Terry, who is practically a cliche of the ghetto youth. A black drug-dealing kid who blows his cash on flashy threads and gaudy jewelry for his girlfriends, he lives near the affluence of Yale University, and yet worlds away culturally. From East Coast to East Texas, where in a small town, Finnegan hangs out with Lanee, a young black woman whose community has just been the subject of a massive federal drug sting. Both sections illustrate just how enticing the drug trade is to the young poor. It's vastly more lucrative than any conceivable alternative, and there's no great social stigma attached to it. In each place, the percentage of the community who is using is so large that the trade assumes a huge place in the microeconomy and has a big ripple effect.

The New Haven section is fairly cohesive, and it's somewhat refreshing to see Finnegan admit his inability to stay detached and his attempts to lend a helping hand to Terry. The East Texas section doesn't hold together quite as well. Although Finnegan is again focusing on an individual (Lanee), he is clearly more interested in the broader story of a large federal drug sting in which virtually everyone in the community has a friend or family member indicted. This ties in with the story of the longtime reign of a benign all-powerful sheriff who recently lost reelection, which also ties in with the influence of the "old" white Texan families of the town. There are a lot of interesting threads here, and it's no wonder Finnegan gets a little distracted.

From here, the book moves west, to the Yakima Valley of central Washington state, where rural meets strip mall. There Finnegan hangs out with Juan, the eldest son of hard-working Mexican immigrant field laborers and union activists. In many ways, he's the most mainstream and self-aware kid of the book, and yet he's constantly in trouble due to a proclivity for fighting. Part of this lies within himself, and part of this stems from his need to back up his friends. Acquiring a rep for being a badass turns into a self-fulfilling trap that he has difficulty escaping. Although slacker Juan doesn't claim any of the various Latino gangs that are rampant throughout the Valley, he's perpetually caught up in various beefs that appear to be one step away from gunfire.

Finally, Finnegan winds up in the LA exurb of Antelope Valley, where he finds a white supremacist skinhead gang at war with the changing neighborhood demographics and a band of anti-racist SHARP skins. This is one of those instant communities whose bubble burst rather quickly when defense and aerospace jobs disappeared. Living in the town became a step down for whites, but a step up for black and Latino families. Fueled by meth and dead-end prospects, white power skins harass local minorities and engage in running skirmishes with anti-racist skinheads. Finnegan does an excellent job of explaining the origins and different shades of the skinhead subculture. Perhaps most disturbing are the confused hangers-on (mostly women), who are alternately allured and disgusted by the white supremacists.

The common theme is that these are all young people who are set on a course of backward mobility, compared to their parents and grandparents. Finnegan places them in the larger context of post-oil crisis, postindustrial America, where a factory job is no longer a sufficient foundation for a middle class existence. Indeed, even the concept of the middle-class as an attainable destination is completely absent. Finnegan apportions blame to the economy that makes stay-at-home parenting the province of the rich, a public education system that has given up on the bottom tier, a punitive welfare system, an ill-considered government approach to the scourge of drugs, and perhaps most tellingly, "the fecklessness and self-absorption of my own generation." This is best reflected in the stunning statistic that over the last 25 years (as of the writing), poverty among the elderly has dropped by 50%, and among children has increased by 37%. This is not an optimistic book, but it will provoke serious thought and debate--a great one for book clubs.