Review: Among The Thugs

Bill Buford is an American journalist who spent who lived in the UK in the 1980s. According to Wikipedia, he became interested in soccer hooligans in 1982 when he witnessed a group of Cardiff supporters commandeer a train on the way home from a match. He spent the following years essentially becoming a football hooligan. Is there such a thing as "method journalism"?!

The book that came out of his experience is called Among the Thugs: The Experience, and the Seduction, of Crowd Violence. I read this book for the first time a number of years ago and it was like watching a car accident. It's a book you almost feel guilty for wanting to devour. It's violent and horrifying and fascinating.

The interesting thing about the book, and this clearly wasn't Buford's intention when he embarked upon writing it, is that it's become something of a must-read in sociology and crowd violence circles. Many of the reasons traditionally given to the question, "Why do crowds turn violent?" are essentially debunked by Buford. For instance, there has long been the notion that a single charismatic leader can incite an otherwise pacific crowd to violence. This is simply not the experience of Buford in his years among the thugs. He writes numerous times in the book about the collective, hard-to-define moment when the crowd - almost as a hive mind - decides to set things off.

In addition, Buford characterizes violence as this particular largely young, largely male group's anti-social behavior; their rebellion agains the status quo. In the same way other peer groups drink too much or use recreational drugs or engage in other high risk rebellions, those involved in hooligan violence see the violence as the drug. During the week, most of them lead very normal lives. The scary part is how honest Buford is about how he comes to love the violence he is witnessing and eventually participating in.

Read it.