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Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot
1 review
greenteadragon's review against another edition
2.0
I found the history to be very white-centric. It pays lip service to Black history, but does not give any kind of in-depth treatment, and Latino, Asian, and Indigenous histories are almost completely ignored, save for one chapter about Chinatown (I was very surprised that AIM's occupation of Alcatraz isn't mentioned at all?). I also felt that the book tended to use loaded or insensitive language to describe its nonwhite and female subjects (for instance, in the small handful of sentences it devoted to Black performer Gladys Bentley, it found room to make multiple rude comments about her weight).Â
The book's ending wraps up a little too neatly; after spending its middle section on violence, politics, and social movements, the book turns abruptly to a football game as its sign that San Francisco has turned the corner. It definitely felt like a manufactured 'happy ending'. The ending did not find much time for looking forward or mentioning how this legacy has impacted modern San Francisco or whether any of these problems have continued; however, it did find quite a lot of time to praise Dianne Feinstein. Obviously it's not really the job of a history book to talk about modern problems, but I felt a bit like the author was forcing history into an oversimplified redemption narrative, and didn't want to acknowledge that it continues beyond the last page. It is a shame because the writing is very moving and powerful in places, especially in the sections about Harvey Milk and Jonestown.
The book's ending wraps up a little too neatly; after spending its middle section on violence, politics, and social movements, the book turns abruptly to a football game as its sign that San Francisco has turned the corner. It definitely felt like a manufactured 'happy ending'. The ending did not find much time for looking forward or mentioning how this legacy has impacted modern San Francisco or whether any of these problems have continued; however, it did find quite a lot of time to praise Dianne Feinstein. Obviously it's not really the job of a history book to talk about modern problems, but I felt a bit like the author was forcing history into an oversimplified redemption narrative, and didn't want to acknowledge that it continues beyond the last page. It is a shame because the writing is very moving and powerful in places, especially in the sections about Harvey Milk and Jonestown.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Blood, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Rape, Racism, Grief, and Homophobia
Moderate: Hate crime, Torture, Police brutality, Racial slurs, Suicide, Gore, and Medical content
Intense, emotional descriptions of the AIDS crisis and the Jonestown cult, including the mass suicide/slaughter.
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