This book is the first attempt to understand Britain's night-time economy, the violence that pervades it, and the bouncers whose job it is to prevent it. Walk down any high street after dark and the shadows of bouncers will loom large, for they are the most visible form of control available in the youth-orientated zones of our cities after dark.

Britain's rapidly expanding night-life is one of the country's most vibrant economic spheres, but it has created huge problems of violence and disorder. Using ethnography, participant observation, and extensive interviews with all the main players, this controversial book charts the emergence of the bouncer as one of the most graphic symbols in the iconography of post industrial Britain