{"title":"Susan A Phillips","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"city-beneath-book-susan-a-phillips-9780300246032","title":"The City Beneath","description":"A sweeping history of Los Angeles told through the lens of the many marginalized groups—from hobos to taggers—that have used the city’s walls as a channel for communication   Graffiti written in storm drain tunnels, on neighborhood walls, and under bridges tells an underground and, until now, untold history of Los Angeles. Drawing on extensive research within the city’s urban landscape, Susan A. Phillips traces the hidden language of marginalized groups over the past century—from the early twentieth-century markings of hobos, soldiers, and Japanese internees to the later inscriptions of surfers, cholos, and punks. Whether describing daredevil kids, bored workers, or clandestine lovers, Phillips profiles the experiences of people who remain underrepresented in conventional histories, revealing the powerful role of graffiti as a venue for cultural expression.   Graffiti aficionados might be surprised to learn that the earliest documented graffiti bubble letters appear not in 1970s New York but in 1920s Los Angeles. Or that the negative letterforms first carved at the turn of the century are still spray painted on walls today. With discussions of characters like Leon Ray Livingston (a.k.a. “A-No. 1”), credited with consolidating the entire system of hobo communication in the 1910s, and Kathy Zuckerman, better known as the surf icon “Gidget,” this lavishly illustrated book tells stories of small moments that collectively build into broad statements about power, memory, landscape, and history itself.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49730511569169,"sku":"NGR9780300246032","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53555637289233,"sku":"GOR014958349","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53683366166801,"sku":"CIN030024603XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/030024603X.jpg?v=1750695206"},{"product_id":"operation-fly-trap-book-susan-a-phillips-9780226667669","title":"Operation Fly Trap","description":"In 2003, an FBI-led task force known as Operation Fly Trap attempted to dismantle a significant drug network in two Bloods-controlled, African American neighborhoods in Los Angeles. The operation would soon be considered an enormous success, noted for the precision with which the task force targeted and removed gang members otherwise entrenched in larger communities. In \"Operation Fly Trap\", Susan A. Phillips questions both the success of this operation and the methods used to conduct it. Based on in-depth ethnographic research with Fly Trap participants, Phillips' work brings together police narratives, crime statistics, gang cultural histories, and extensive public policy analysis to examine the relationship between state persecution and the genesis of violent social systems. Balancing her roles as even-handed reporter and public scholar, Phillips reveals multiple flaws within the US criminal justice system and builds a powerful argument that many law enforcement policies in fact nurture, rather than prevent, violence in American society. Crucial to Philips' contribution is the presentation of the voices and perspectives of both the people living in impoverished communities and the agents that police them. Phillips positions law enforcement surveillance and suppression as a critical point of contact between citizen and state. She tracks the bureaucratic workings of police and FBI agencies and the language, ideologies, and methods that prevail within them, and shows how gangs have adapted, seeking out new locations, learning to operate without hierarchies, and moving their activities more deeply underground. Additionally, she shows how the targeted efforts of task forces such as Fly Trap wreak sweeping, sustained damage on family members and the community at large as a result of aggressive policing and over incarceration. In demonstrating how grossly misdirected these police efforts have been, Phillips recasts the gang and drug problem as an issue of social, rather than criminal, justice.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50345941860625,"sku":"CIN0226667669G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226667669.jpg?v=1751005351"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-susan-a-phillips.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}