After hearing a personal recommendation from Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame, I jumped to download this book. Knowing Levitt to be a levelheaded, logical, and pragmatic economist with a tremendous ability to assess cause and effect, I figured that this book would cover the basics of how and why violence blossomed in America. This came on the heels of my most recent reading of Pinker's "Better Angels of Our Nature", and exhausting but tremendously informative tome that covers the history, motivations, and science of violence in the human race.
As a result, I found "Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun" to be...not what I expected, but still an interesting listen. As the title implies, the books outlines author Canada's personal experience growing up in rough neighborhoods, and his personal choices to fix that. Canada tells an amazing story about how rough life in the big city can be, and compares it to the new threats that youth faces in the forgotten ghettos today. He also describes how he dove head-first into these rough areas to tackle the problem, and how his methods brought a surprising degree of success.
I was taken aback by the Canada's assertion that certain types of violence, applied strategically, can cause more serious violence to be mitigated, but his point is believable in light of his personal experience in this area.
If you are looking for a scientific study about how violence happens and why, look elsewhere (I would recommend the aforementioned Pinker book). If you are looking for a fast read that combines personal experience with one man's successful efforts to quell violence in an area he calls home, your search is over.