| Abstrakt: |
This article focuses on race relations. Beginning with the Chicago school of sociology in the 1920s, scholarly works on inner-city decline have tended to adopt an almost antiseptic scientific approach to the study of "neighborhood invasion and succession," often neglecting in the process to describe the actual experiences of inner-city residents. In the book "Left Behind in Rosendale: Race Relations and the Collapse of Community Institutions," the author Scott Cummings promises to add a human element to the analysis of social and economic decay in an inner-city section of Fort Worth, Texas. The book presents dozens of interviews collected over the course of a decade which provide a rich source of information on the attitudes and concerns of Rosedale's residents. The most terrifying portions of the book deal with incidents of indiscriminate violence that bring the reader directly into the experience of living in constant fear. At its most lurid point, the book begins to take on the tone of a sensationalist television documentary. |
