UBC: Public Enemies
Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934. New York: Penguin Books, 2004.
This book covers events from the Kansas City Massacre (June 17, 1933) to the arrest of Alvin Karpis (June 1, 1935): the rise of J. Edgar Hoover and the downfalls of the Barkers and Alvin Karpis; Pretty Boy Floyd; Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker; John Dillinger; and Baby Face Nelson. And all the astounding clusterfucks that took place along the way. The book is both lively and informative, and Burrough does his best to give both sides of the story, discussing the FBI as much as the criminals.
He does, however, have biases. He likes Alvin Karpis and John Dillinger, is essentially uninterested in Pretty Boy Floyd, and is weirdly contemptuous of Barrow and Parker. (He always calls them "Bonnie and Clyde," whereas the other criminals get the respect of being called by their surnames (except as necessary to distinguish between Fred and Dock Barker). Burrough does not, for instance, call John Dillinger "John" or "Johnnie" in his exposition. And he condemns Barrow and Parker with a viciousness that no one else in the book gets:
Now, I'm not saying that Burrough is wrong about Barrow and Parker. But I don't see how they're any worse than Dillinger, Karpis, Floyd, or Nelson (especially Nelson, whom Burrough frankly describes as a psychopath). All of them left a trail of bodies behind them, even Dillinger, whom Burrough comes perilously close to valorizing. Burrough is contemptuous of Barrow because he never made it as a bank robber, but the thing this book makes clear is that all of these notorious criminal masterminds botched jobs, escaped through pure luck time and again, and in the end died cruelly pathetic deaths.
Overall, this is a very good book, and it does an excellent job of showing the astonishing confluence of bank robbers and G-men, each playing into the other's hands, in 1933 and 1934. You just have to be aware that Burrough is not impartial, because he won't tell you so himself.
This book covers events from the Kansas City Massacre (June 17, 1933) to the arrest of Alvin Karpis (June 1, 1935): the rise of J. Edgar Hoover and the downfalls of the Barkers and Alvin Karpis; Pretty Boy Floyd; Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker; John Dillinger; and Baby Face Nelson. And all the astounding clusterfucks that took place along the way. The book is both lively and informative, and Burrough does his best to give both sides of the story, discussing the FBI as much as the criminals.
He does, however, have biases. He likes Alvin Karpis and John Dillinger, is essentially uninterested in Pretty Boy Floyd, and is weirdly contemptuous of Barrow and Parker. (He always calls them "Bonnie and Clyde," whereas the other criminals get the respect of being called by their surnames (except as necessary to distinguish between Fred and Dock Barker). Burrough does not, for instance, call John Dillinger "John" or "Johnnie" in his exposition. And he condemns Barrow and Parker with a viciousness that no one else in the book gets:
Art [the 1967 movie] has now done for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow something they could never achieve in life: it has taken a shark-eyed multiple murderer and his deluded girlfriend and transformed them into sympathetic characters, imbuing them with a cuddly likeability they did not possess, and a cultural significance they do not deserve.
(Burrough 361)
Now, I'm not saying that Burrough is wrong about Barrow and Parker. But I don't see how they're any worse than Dillinger, Karpis, Floyd, or Nelson (especially Nelson, whom Burrough frankly describes as a psychopath). All of them left a trail of bodies behind them, even Dillinger, whom Burrough comes perilously close to valorizing. Burrough is contemptuous of Barrow because he never made it as a bank robber, but the thing this book makes clear is that all of these notorious criminal masterminds botched jobs, escaped through pure luck time and again, and in the end died cruelly pathetic deaths.
Overall, this is a very good book, and it does an excellent job of showing the astonishing confluence of bank robbers and G-men, each playing into the other's hands, in 1933 and 1934. You just have to be aware that Burrough is not impartial, because he won't tell you so himself.
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