Steppin' Out

?Steppin' Out is the first scholarly study of nightlife in the leading American metropolis or, for that matter, in any major American city. Previously explored only by popular writers and gossip columnists, this fascinating segment of modern urban culture has now finally received serious, sophisticated, and, not least important, sympathetic academic treatment. For Lewis Erenberg ... has presented nightlife-- its history, values, institutions and leading figures--as reflecting not the pathology of urban culture, as have so many others, but its positive expression, its unique identity. ... Steppin' Out is amply illustrated and clearly written. Based on entertainers' scrapbooks and memoirs, reformers' accounts, Variety, contemporary newspapers and other publications, it is ... a significant contribution to urban hstory.?-Urban History Review