| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.2

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.2 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Jeffrey S. Adler. First in Violence, Deepest in Dirt: Homicide in Chicago, 1875–1920. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2006. Pp. 367. $35.00.

The title of Jeffrey S. Adler's fascinating and important book comes from Lincoln Steffens's 1903 observation that Chicago was "first in violence, deepest in dirt." The history of Chicago's reputation has long revolved around such superlatives, and although this is not the first monograph to make claims about the nature of modern urban life based on Chicago's extraordinary growth, it shows, as few other scholarly studies have, how Chicagoans' propensity for killing fit into the larger social history of the city. There is little in this book about the high-profile exploits of Al Capone and John Dillinger, or the Hollywood gangster films of the 1930s. Rather, Adler takes a systematic look at the more prosaic acts of murder—barroom brawls, marital conflicts, and so forth—that established Chicago's reputation as the most violent city in the world.

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