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Born Fi' Dead: A Journey Through The Jamaican Posse Underworld | 
 enlarge | Author: Laurie Gunst
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy Used: $7.10
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 504451
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0805046984
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.106097292
EAN: 9780805046984
ASIN: 0805046984
Publication Date: March 15, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Softcover. Name written inside the front cover. Some page corners are folded. Pages appear unmarked. Ships the next business day, with tracking and delivery confirmation sent to your email.
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Product Description
Of the ethnic gangs that rule America’s inner cities, none has had the impact of the Jamaican posses. Spawned in the ghettos of Kingston as mercenary street-fighters for the island’s politicians, the posses began migrating to the United States in the early 1980s, just in time to catch and ride the crack wave as it engulfed the country. Feared and honored for being “harder than the rest,” they would lay claim to their new American territory with outlaw bravura, and the raw dancehall music born of their world would define “gangsta” culture for a generation of angry sufferers in Jamaica, American, and England. Laurie Gunst spent a decade moving with the possemen, and Born Fi’ Dead is her unique account of this netherworld, the first to bring to life Jamaica’s international gangs.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 Discard the rose-tinted reading glasses to be well informed. September 17, 1998
17 out of 19 found this review helpful
Born fi Dead is by no means the definitive work on the topic of Jamaican criminal gangs, but as it is one of only a published few, one is obliged to read it if at all interested in the subject. The American author, a Harvard graduate and self-styled `street ethnographer,' carried out 10 years of intensive research for the book- some two years of which she undertook in Jamaica. It charts the rise, rise and fall (more of a stumble) of the notorious Jamaican gangsters - dubbed `Posses' in the US and `Yardies' in the UK. Laurie Gunst eloquently illuminates the hostile backdrop that spawns the gunmen, depicting their path from political conception to subsequent redundancy to their flight to America, where crack and easy access to more guns were conveniently waiting in the early eighties. Poverty, high-powered weapons and narcotics are the staple diet of the content of the book. All the major warlords are acknowledged - Claudie Massop, Bucky Marshall, the CIA, the Jim Brown dynasty, "Uzi" Edwards and the like, though some are portrayed with a little too much deference to the cowboy movies we're informed had so much influence on the protagonists. The colonial context and crimson history of the island and it's inhabitants is also covered, though with a hand towel rather than a tarpaulin; more pages are devoted to the surviving and/or imprisoned soldiers of the ghetto ranks, recanting the cinematic scenes from their virulent, violent careers. Ms Gunst, however, doesn't refrain from telling it how she saw it - pulling no punches when disclosing the catalytic role played by the fire-starting local politicians: ".......they got their guns from the JLP (a one-time ruling party.)" The book is an informative introduction to the study of Jamaican criminal crews and is worth a read, though you may have to look past the author's somewhat mawkish stance and her romanticised sense of reality: she describes a machine-gun toting soldier, carrying out what's known in the ghetto as a `rat-patrol' as having "beautiful hands, poised ever-so-gracefully on the barrel." Their is a portent to that sort of thing in the book's introduction, where the writer describes how she conceived the book as "part travellers' tale." There is also a quite intentionally scaremongering afterword entitled `Is Britain next?' that is covered, along with the rest of this subject matter, far more broadly and authentically in the book Ruthless written by Geoff Small.
 Born Fi Dead-Exposes Jamaica's Gun Obsession August 17, 2000
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
What author Laurie Gunst has written has been well researched and documented. However we will have some Jamaicans up in arms at the hidden truths of our gun crazy society. The book is consise and gives the reader a factural history ride from British Rule to Independence. What she has exposed is the ruthless politicians who are now more worried about the monster they have created.From Kingston/New York/Miami/Dallas and now England Gunst has a book that moves at a exceptional speed I could not put it down and had to tell others. In reality she has written about facts that do exist sadly to the detriment of Jamaica. If you read one book on Yardies/Possee's it has to be this one. It hits hard and for those of us around at the times of these horrific crimes it opens up old wounds.
 Hatchet job August 24, 2000
Dennis Stephens (Kingston Jamaica)
10 out of 23 found this review helpful
As someone who knows what it is like to live in Jamaica, I found this book to be an excellent hatchet job on those who opposed the government of the 70,s. I think that Laura has been made a bit of a fool by the Anansi types that inhabit our intellectual ghettoes,and also our economic and social ghettoes. She accepts without question the things fed to her by one side of the civil war. In her pseudo-objective (and very superficial),so called academic fashion she comes to conclusions that demonstrate her lack of understanding of the dynamics of the situation that existed then. If it is true that we are now suffering from the monsters that were created then,it might be because we did not do enough, in the 80's, to exorcise the demons that arose during the period of the 70's. Had Miss Guntz the intellectual capacity to adopt a more objective approach in researching and writing this book, she would have done us a favour. As it is, she has only added heat, and not light to, the current situation in Jamaica. Can I give her zero stars?
Easy Reading July 24, 2000
cherylldawn (Massachusetts, USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Although there were few things in the book which were new to me, I found it refreshing to read from an objective-thinking author. The book is also supposedly banned in Jamaica due to its political content, but is becoming a popular read for many Jamaicans in the US.I enjoyed it tremendously.
hatchet job 2 January 5, 2001
Andrew Tai Sue
5 out of 16 found this review helpful
As somene who actually lived through those times and lived in the Southside ghetto she writes about and knew a lot of the people in this book I must say that the spin on events that happened during this time is the same propaganda that was spread by the ruling PNP government of the 70's and this book is a disservice to the many people who lived and died during those times. We really did not do enough during the 80's to eradicate the Socialist evil that was unleashed onto that Land. As with any book proceed with caution and question the Author's intentions.
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