List of skinhead books. List contain best books relating to the skinhead subculture.
Skinhead books by alphabetical order:
A Boy’s Story : Martin King
As the 1960’s drew to a close, parents across Britain raised a curious eyebrow as their long-haired children suddenly returned home with shaven heads, sporting Levi’s jeans and vicious looking army boots, pleading for three quid to buy a Harrington jacket from the market. The skinhead was born and a youth culture stronger and more widespread than any other, before or since, took Britain by storm. Marting King was one of them. Boys and girls alike embraced this new working-class fashion and music – the West Indian reggae sounds of Blue Beat and the strong sense of identity they fostered. For a couple of summers the media would have it that England was under seige, when the young skins paraded at seaside resorts on bank holidays and later on terraces at nearly every football ground acros the country. With his passion for Chelsea FC and their growing reputation as the skinhead club forming a backdrop, King artfully and humorously describes the heady mix of pleasures which were all part of life as a teenager growing up in working-class south London in the late 60’s
A Propos du Phenomene des Skinheads et du Racisme en Suisse
American Skinheads – The Criminology and Control of Hate Crime : Mark S. Hamm
American Skinheads is the first criminological analysis of organized hate crime violence. Mark Hamm presents historical specificity for a modern theory of hate crime, then rigorously tests the theory with interview data derived from skinheads who have committed an array of violent acts against persons because of their race, religion, or sexual preference–people who are members of the classic outgroups of American society.
American Skin : Don De Grazia
It is a timeless story about a young man’s coming-of-age as well as a stunning portrait of the class and racial tensions that pervade our society. Alex Verdi is on the lam, fleeing from the police who have arrested his parents on drug charges and want him for questioning. Traveling to Chicago, he joins a multiracial group of anti-Nazi skinheads and embarks on an odyssey that takes him from the city’s embattled streets to an Army boot camp to Northwestern’s plush campus, and finally lands him amid the horrors of maximum-security prison.
Back from the Brink: Rebellious Youth, Skinhead and Addict : Noel Davidson
Chris Killen appeared to be a normal teenager — but he wasn’t. He was experimenting with drugs. Soon he had left home, become a skinhead, a gang member, and a drug addict. When his mind, health, and hope was gone, he decided to end it all… but he was snatched back from the brink. In all his travels, he carried around his little Gideon New Testament, which he read when nobody was looking. This book tells how God gave Chris a new life in Christ and a new challenge on earth.
Blood Crimes: The Pennsylvania Skinhead Murders : Fred Rosen
Describes how two teenage brothers brutally murdered their father, mother, and younger brother; their involvement with the racist neo-Nazi skinhead movement; their flight across America; and their eventual capture and conviction.
Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture : James Ridgeway
Updated to incorporate information on the Oklahoma City bombing and the militia movement, this in-depth study of the rise of white supremacists and religious fundamentalists traces the history of such movements, their tactics, and their impact.
Booted and Suited : Chris Brown
Welcome to the real seventies, where the hair is shaved, the music is funky and the football is violent. Chris Brown was right there in the thick of the action. With his regulation haircut, clip on braces, shrunk Levis and bovver boots, he had the look every self-respecting bovver boy could not be seen without.
Cherry Docs : David Gow
Cream Of The Crops : Mark Brown
England Belongs to Me : Steve Goodman
Book follows the tradition of Richard Allen, describing the early Rude-Boy, Skinhead, Punk scene in Britain. I find this novel unbiased and true to the ideals of Punk.
Football Hooliganism and the Skinheads : John Clarke
Les Skinheads et l’Extreme Droite : Daniel Hubert
No Retreat : Dave Hann and Steve Hilsey
Oi for England : Trevor Griffiths
Oi! Stories : Kid Stoker
Once upon a time in 1977 the punk rock explosion hit the English city of Sunderland. Almost overnight a punk scene was born, a Sunderland scene that would produce bands like The Angelic Upstarts, The Rebels, Red Alert, Red London and The Toy Dolls. These musicians grew up together and have many stories to tell. Stories that actually happened, stories that are true, Oi Stories
Rechte Kerle: Skinheads, Faschos, Hooligans : Burkhard Schröder
Slow Death : Stewart Home
A dreary, noisy novel that recounts with visceral overenthusiasm the adventures of a gang of British skinheads in conflict with a sex-starved woman doctor, a London “art star,” and one another, as they explore the vicissitudes of “Art and Resistance” in a foulmouthed frontal assault on the avant-garde art scene. Its contempt for bourgeois values produces some agreeable inventions (“Neoism,” “the Semiotic Liberation Front,” and “the Journal of Immaterial Art” constitute decent throwaway gags at least), but its blood- and sperm-soaked narrative and its characters’ continual entreaties for oral sex are muted, though scarcely redeemed, by what might in another context be called elegant variation (“liquid genetics,” indeed). This is the kind of book that gives mindless violence and sexual degradation a bad name.
Skins : Gavin Watson
This book is much more than a collection of skinhead images. It is a celebration of youth. Perhaps one of the most reviled yet misunderstood of all the youth subcultures, the skinhead look originated back in the 60s as a simple fashion statement. Sartorially proud of their working class roots, the original skinhead was a multicultural, politically broad-minded and fashion-aware individual. Favorite music was reggae, soul and ska and key artists included Desmond Dekker, Max Romeo and The Pyramids. Their choice of immaculate clothing and invariably Dr. Martens boots was the ultimate anti-fashion statement and a badge of both power and pride. Above all else, genuine skinheads were obsessed with their presentation. The 70s saw the look adopted by the scurge of right-wing extremists and for many years was a fashion pariah. However, towards the end of the 90s, the closely cropped look has been championed by a whole new generation of high profile celebrities, including David Beckham and Ewan McGregor, bringing skinhead style back into the mainstream once again.
Gavin Watson skins
Skins and Punks : Lost Archives 1978 – 1985 : Gavin Watson
Skins & Punks is a singular retrospective complete with commentaries and oral histories. The stories behind the shots are shocking, hilarious, severe, and heartbreaking, and each gets behind what it was really like to be a rebellious workingclass youth growing up in the 1980s. This is documentary photography at its best, a stunningly intimate window into a cultural movement.
Skinhead : Nick Knight
In this book, Nick Knight traces the history from the original sixties skinheads to the mid-seventies revival. This book also features – discography of skinhead hits, Jim Ferguson’s illustrated fashion notebook, Dick Hebdige on the sociology of youth cults, and Nick Knight’s east end photographs.
Nick Knight skinhead
Skinhead: A Way Of Life : Klaus Farin
Skinhead Confessions: From Hate to Hope : T. J. Leyden with Bridget M. Cook
A background in hate. A life of violence. A love for power. But all he needed was a moment of truth. I heard the gasp of horror and knew I’d been caught. “What are those?” she cried, pointing at my body, which was covered from neck to waist in graphic, sinister tattoos. No way was I going to tell her what they meant – the hate crimes I’d committed, the people I’d stabbed and maimed to earn those tattoos. No way was I going to tell her about the hundreds of kids I’d initiated to follow me into the White Power movement and the things they did for me every day. From his youth, TJ Leyden was taught to fight, to hurt, and to hate. Cunningly brilliant and deceptively clean-cut, TJ found that life with the Skinheads was exactly what he – and they – needed. Quickly rising to the top, TJ recruited members for the Skins, and in return he earned a name and a reputation as one of the most powerful men in the White Power movement. With a skill for fanning the fires of hatred and an ability to elude the law, it seemed that nothing would stop TJ – that is, until he became a father. As his own children grew, so did TJ’s uncertainty about the cause he’d endorsed for so long. One fact finally emerged from all the racist propaganda: white power wasn’t about being white; it was simply about having someone to hate. And once he realized this truth, TJ knew his life could never been the same. Skinhead Confessions takes you on an unbelievable ride through a dark world of violence to one of openness and faith in the future. TJ’s honesty and courage – even in the face of death – have inspired people across America to take action against gang violence and hate crimes. A book unlike any other, this is the amazing true story of one person’s journey from hatred to hope.
Skinhead International: A Worldwide Survey of Neo-Nazi Skinheads : B’Nai B’Rith Anti-Defamation League
Skinhead Nation : George Marshall
Skinhead Nation is in many ways both a companion to Spirit Of ‘69 and an opportunity to concentrate more on the individuals that make up the cult, rather than the events and music that have shaped its history. The hope is that Skinhead Nation will show skinheads as the individuals they are, and celebrate the skinhead cult as it was in various parts of the world in the mid 1990s. Like Spirit Of ‘69, Skinhead Nation is far from a complete guide to the skinhead way of life and it’s not perfect, but again I’ve done my best, and if just one person reads this and walks away with a better understanding of the skinhead cult then it has been worth doing.
Skinheads : Eberhard Seidel-Peilen and Klaus Farin
Skinheads and the Study of Youth Culture : John Clarke
Skinheads Gothics Rockabillies : Gewalt, Tod & Rock ‘n’ Roll : Susanne El-Nawab
Skinheads, Rastas and Hippies : John Williams
Skinheads, Rastas and Hippies reflects John’s involvement in the alternative culture of the 1970s through to the 1990s. He saw a common denominator between the different ethnic and sub-culture groups i.e. Rastas mixing with hippies/ skinheads etc. It was these experiences coupled with his own diagnosis of schzophrenia that lead John to put pen to paper. A truly entertaining read the story reflects John’s upbringing and youth in the mixed and sometimes volatile Brixton in South London.
Skinheads : Roman : Roger Martin
Skinheads Shaved for Battle : A Cultural History of American Skinheads : Jack B. Moore
This book describes who American skinheads are, how they have developed within larger youth group scenes, their ideas and activities, the role of music in their formation and development, how they have been perceived by the media in America, and what damage they have done in American society. Jack B. Moore focuses on the cultural history of this group in America during the 1980s and suggests that while they were originally a minor distraction on the punk scene, they have grown into a dangerous and far more politically engaged source of hate thought and crime.
Skinhead Street Gangs : Loren Christensen
This is a crash course in racist violence by Loren Christensen, a nationally recognized expert on skinhead gangs and police officer in Portland, Oregon, a city once dubbed the “Skinhead Capital of the U.S.” This cop’s view of skinheads explains who they are, why they’re violent, who their targets are, how they operate, what weapons they favor and what danger they pose to society and to police.
Skinheads und die Gesellschaftliche Rechte : Frank Lauenburg
Skinstreet – The Skinhead Way of Life : Angelo Sindaco
After the success of Amplified Youth, an amazing report on the indie scene and the new rock ‘n roll fever, Angelo Sindaco continues to dig into the faults of modernity. Pressurized energy, about to explode: he is a spy of the conflict that started at the borders and has spread to the centre. Skinstreet is the last book by the photographer, with images shot around Europe and the United States. Sindaco is mapping the mutant geography of the street scene, he is an authentic cultural Jedi like Drago. The challenge, this time, is in the controversial, usually demonized, world of the shaved heads. A former skinhead himself, Angelo Sindaco revisits his past with his camera, immortalizing one of the most “esoteric” tribes on the globe. According to the author it is “a world apart” and “hard to approach”. Equally radical, is the code required to adapt and blend in. Starting with the intrinsic rite of shaving to boots, leather jackets and heavy tattoos. This is the look, the complete dress-code of the urban warrior. It has been like this since the 60s, true to its white working class roots. Criticised by the orthodox, the skinheads damned charm has an irresistible appeal to the gay community. So, from the outside, the phenomenon ends under the lights of the paparazzi: on the catwalks and the fashion magazines. However, the “gonzos” of the counter-culture don’t surrender to the temptations of show business. Instead, they continue to protectively foster their identity, avoiding all sorts of contaminations. Hard and pure until the end.
Spirit of ’69 – A Skinhead Bible : George Marshall
The definitive book on the British skinhead phenomenon. From the late 60s to the present, this book gives it to you straight. Style, music, football, aggro. From SHARP to the scourge of the neo-nazis. A wealth of photographs, graphics and cuttings make this a rather indispensable guide.
Spirit of 69
Swansea Jacks : From Skinheads to Stone Island – Forty Years of One of Britain’s Most Notorious Hooligan Gangs : Andrew Tooze and Martin King
Here, in graphic detail, the Swansea Jacks recount the history of their times following the Welsh club. Cardiff City and their infamous Soul Crew have been arch-rivals of the Swansea Jacks for over four decades. Tooze and King chart the rise of the Swansea firm, from the Skinhead movement in the late 60s until today’s present fashion-conscious casuals. They write not just about the hooligan scene, but also about the politics involved in following a lower league team, the music and the drugs scene.
Von Skinheads keine Spur : Lutz von Dijk
Want Some Aggro? : Cass Pennant and Micky Smith
White Noise: Inside the International Nazi Skinhead Scene : Nick Lowles