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Born Fi Dead: A Journey through the Jamaican Posse Underworld, by Laurie Gunst. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1995. 245 pp. $23.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-8050-3205-3.
In the literary style of the journalist and storyteller, Laurie Gunst chronicles the history of the Jamaican street gangs, known as the "posses," from their emergence in Jamaica to their deadly presence in the cities of the United States. She provides an explanation for their emergence in the combined legacies of colonialism and the surrogate conflicts of the Cold War played out in Jamaica. The focus of the book is on the causes and reality of Jamaican drug gangsterism in Jamaica and in the inner cities of the United States. It is a fascinating and chilling account, brilliantly told.
For 10 years Laurie Gunst was a participantobserver in the posse world, moving in the intimate circles of the Jamaican gunmen and outlaws. She followed their exploits from inner-city Jamaica to the streets of New York. While the book lacks the formal academic style of social science, it emerges as a triumph of social science research....