Code of the Street
Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City
Published on 17. September 2000
Book
Paperback/Softback
352 pages
978-0-393-32078-7 (ISBN)
Description
Inner-city black America is often stereotyped as a place of random violence, but in fact, violence in the inner city is regulated through an informal but well-known code of the street. This unwritten set of rules-based largely on an individual's ability to command respect-is a powerful and pervasive form of etiquette, governing the way in which people learn to negotiate public spaces. Elijah Anderson's incisive book delineates the code and examines it as a response to the lack of jobs that pay a living wage, to the stigma of race, to rampant drug use, to alienation and lack of hope.
Reviews / Votes
"A brilliant diagnosis of the internal factors that hold blacks back." -- Wall Street Journal "One of the most interesting examinations of poverty, violence and sociology to emerge in recent years." -- Boston Herald "One of our best ethnographers.... Anderson is excellent in explaining how the criminal element, through a numerical minority, comes to dominate public space." -- New York Times Book Review "Important.... [Anderson] demonstrates, time and again, how optimism, ambition and decency can sprout in the most unlikely places, given even the slimmest chance." -- Newsweek "Eloquent and moving.... A strikingly powerful work that rings with urgency." -- Alex Kotlowitz, author of There Are No Children Here "This is the best treatment we have of the tormented inner life of young people wrestling with nihilism in a society indifferent to their plight and predicament." -- Cornel WestMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 209 mm
Width: 139 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-32078-7 (9780393320787)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Book
approx. 08/2026
WW Norton & Co
€19.00
Not yet published
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2000
W. W. Norton & Company
€17.49
Available for download
Person
Elijah Anderson is the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of Black Studies at Yale University. In recognition of his pioneering research, he was awarded the prestigious Stockholm Prize in the field of Criminology in 2021 and the American Society of Criminology's Edwin H. Sutherland Award in 2025.