Even in a town notorious for gangsters like Al Capone, much of Chicago's lawless lore has remained uncharted. Chicago's Chinatown, in particular, was home to a vast criminal enterprise, strictly bound by old-country rituals, rules and traditions. Few kno
Discover the untold story of the Windy City's Ghost Shadows. Even in a town notorious for gangsters like Al Capone, much of Chicago's lawless lore has remained uncharted. Chicago's Chinatown, in particular, was home to a vast criminal enterprise, strictly bound by old country rituals, rules and traditions. Few know of Moy Dong Chew, aka "Opium Dong," one of Chinatown's original godfathers, much less Frank Moy, his fedora-wearing predecessor. While incidents like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre dominated newspaper headlines, the Tong Wars were being waged in the shadows. Author Harrison Fillmore relates the long and sordid history of Chinatown's underbelly from the early 1880s to the late 1980s when a Federal Indictment essentially ended organized crime's grip on their good citizens
Painting a vivid picture of the pivotal case that broke apart a Chicago mob family, this narrative relies on court transcripts, police records, interviews, and notes to recreate the story as it unfolded in a 2007 courtroom.
The story of the author's grandfather and his mysterious double life kept secret for 27 years. Two wives, two families, a hacienda in Cuba; his clients included Al Capone and his heirs Paul "the waiter" Ricca, Tony Accardo, Sam Giancana and many others. His contacts included the Pope, LBJ, and the "Commission," the heads of the mob families.
The chilling true story of how the son of the most violent mobster in Chicago helped bring down the last great American crime syndicate: the one-hundred-year-old Chicago Outfit. In Operation Family Secrets, Frank Calabrese, Jr. reveals for the first time the outfit’s “made” ceremony and describes being put to work alongside his father and uncle in loan sharking, gambling, labor racketeering, and extortion. As members of the outfit, they plotted the slaying of a fellow gangster, committed the bombing murder of a trucking executive, the gangland execution of two mobsters—whose burial in an Indiana cornfield was reenacted in Martin Scorsese’s blockbuster film Casino—and numerous other hits. The Calabrese Crew’s colossal earnings and extreme ruthlessness made them both a dreaded criminal gang and the object of an intense FBi inquiry. When Frank Jr., his father, and Uncle Nick are convicted on racketeering violations, “Junior” and “Senior” are sent to the same federal penitentiary in Michigan. It's there that Frank Jr. makes the life-changing decision to go straight. But he needs to keep his father behind bars in order to regain control of his life and save his family. So Frank Jr. makes a secret deal with prosecutors, and for six months—unmonitored and unprotected—he wears a wire as his father recounts decades of hideous crimes. Frank Jr.’s cooperation with the FBI for virtually no monetary gain or special privileges helped create the government’s “Operation Family Secrets” campaign against the Chicago outfit, which reopened eighteen unsolved murders, implicated twelve La Cosa Nostra soldiers and two outfit bosses, and became one of the largest organized crime cases in U.S. history. Operation Family Secrets intimately portrays how organized crime rots a family from the inside out while detailing Frank Jr.’s deadly prison-yard mission, the FBI’s landmark investigation, and the U.S. attorney’s office’s daring prosecution of America’s most dangerous criminal organization.
In this entertaining and insightful essay, Mario Puzo chronicles his rise from struggling writer to overnight success after the publication of The Godfather. With equal parts cynicism and humor, Puzo recounts the book deal and his experiences in Hollywood while writing the screenplay for the movie. Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Evans, Peter Bart, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino all make appearances-as does Frank Sinatra, in his famous and disastrous encounter with Puzo. First published in 1972, the essay is now available as an ebook for the first time. A must-have for every Godfather fan! Featuring a foreword by Ed Falco, author of The Family Corleone.
Chinese American baby boomers who grew up within the twenty-nine square blocks of San Francisco's Chinatown lived in two worlds. Elders implored the younger generation to retain ties with old China even as the youth felt the pull of a future sheathed in red, white and blue. The family-owned shops, favorite siu-yeh (snack) joints and the gai-chongs where mothers labored as low-wage seamstresses contrasted with the allure of Disney, new cars and football. It was a childhood immersed in two vibrant cultures and languages, shaped by both. Author Edmund S. Wong brings to life Chinatown's heart and soul from its golden age.
“A good read for anyone who wants to understand what actually determines whether a developing economy will succeed.” —Bill Gates, “Top 5 Books of the Year” An Economist Best Book of the Year from a reporter who has spent two decades in the region, and who the Financial Times said “should be named chief myth-buster for Asian business.” In How Asia Works, Joe Studwell distills his extensive research into the economies of nine countries—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China—into an accessible, readable narrative that debunks Western misconceptions, shows what really happened in Asia and why, and for once makes clear why some countries have boomed while others have languished. Studwell’s in-depth analysis focuses on three main areas: land policy, manufacturing, and finance. Land reform has been essential to the success of Asian economies, giving a kick-start to development by utilizing a large workforce and providing capital for growth. With manufacturing, industrial development alone is not sufficient, Studwell argues. Instead, countries need “export discipline,” a government that forces companies to compete on the global scale. And in finance, effective regulation is essential for fostering, and sustaining growth. To explore all of these subjects, Studwell journeys far and wide, drawing on fascinating examples from a Philippine sugar baron’s stifling of reform to the explosive growth at a Korean steel mill. “Provocative . . . How Asia Works is a striking and enlightening book . . . A lively mix of scholarship, reporting and polemic.” —The Economist
Presents a history of the Chicago Outfit, detailing its role in the development of the city's organized crime scene as well as the political and corporate protection it secured in order to become one of the most successful crime families.
A panoramic global history of the nineteenth century A monumental history of the nineteenth century, The Transformation of the World offers a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of a world in transition. Jürgen Osterhammel, an eminent scholar who has been called the Braudel of the nineteenth century, moves beyond conventional Eurocentric and chronological accounts of the era, presenting instead a truly global history of breathtaking scope and towering erudition. He examines the powerful and complex forces that drove global change during the "long nineteenth century," taking readers from New York to New Delhi, from the Latin American revolutions to the Taiping Rebellion, from the perils and promise of Europe's transatlantic labor markets to the hardships endured by nomadic, tribal peoples across the planet. Osterhammel describes a world increasingly networked by the telegraph, the steamship, and the railways. He explores the changing relationship between human beings and nature, looks at the importance of cities, explains the role slavery and its abolition played in the emergence of new nations, challenges the widely held belief that the nineteenth century witnessed the triumph of the nation-state, and much more. This is the highly anticipated English edition of the spectacularly successful and critically acclaimed German book, which is also being translated into Chinese, Polish, Russian, and French. Indispensable for any historian, The Transformation of the World sheds important new light on this momentous epoch, showing how the nineteenth century paved the way for the global catastrophes of the twentieth century, yet how it also gave rise to pacifism, liberalism, the trade union, and a host of other crucial developments.