The Vapors: A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice

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Describes the history of Hot Springs, Arkansas. The author plots the trajectory of everything from organized crime to America's fraught racial past, examining how a town synonymous with white gangsters supported a burgeoning black middle class. He reveals how the louche underbelly of the South was also home to veterans hospitals and baseball's spring training grounds, giving rise to everyone from Babe Ruth to President Bill Clinton