Rebels and Mafiosi
Rebels and Mafiosi

Author: James Fentress

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-10-18

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1501721518

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For centuries, Sicilian "men of honor" have fought the controls of government. Between 1820 and 1860, rebellions shook the island as these men joined with Sicily's intellectuals in the struggle for independence from the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples. This lively account—the first to locate the emergence and evolution of the mafia in historical perspective—describes how those rebellions led to the birth of the modern mafia and traces the increasing influence of organized crime on the island. The alliance between two classes of Sicilians, James Fentress shows, made possible both the revolution and the mafia. Militancy in the ranks of the revolution taught men of honor how to organize politically. Communities then resisted the demands of central government by devising alternative controls through a network of local groups—the mafia cosche.Fentress tells his operatic story of honor and crime from the viewpoint of the Sicilians, and in particular of the great city of Palermo—from Garibaldi's historic arrival in 1860 to the spectacular mafia trials around the turn of the century. Drawing on police archives, trial records, contemporary journalism, and government reports, he describes how enduring political power plus a (richly deserved) reputation for violence helped the mafia secure covert relationships with groups that publicly denounced them. These contacts still protect today's mafiosi from Rome's efforts to eradicate the organization. The history of the mafia is indeed, Fentress shows, the history of Sicily.

Rebels & Mafiosi
Rebels & Mafiosi

Author: James Fentress

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780801435393

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Fentress, a former political philosophy professor at Brunel U. in London, England and current resident of Italy, describes the historical emergence and evolution of the Mafia, from the early- to mid-19th century Sicilian alliances between "men of honor" and intellectuals in the struggle for independence from the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples to the longstanding covert relationships that are protecting today's mafiosi. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

The First Family
The First Family

Author: Mike Dash

Publisher: Doubleday Canada

Published: 2009-08-04

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 0307372308

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Hundreds of books have been written about the American Mafia, but none has told how it came into existence. This one does. Mafia books are notoriously unreliable, too often filled with the recycled errors of earlier authors. This one has been painstakingly researched from primary sources, including interviews with surviving family members and a vast, previously unexamined Secret Service archive. The result is an extraordinary work of history that grips, astonishes and chills the blood like a thriller. It tells the little-known story of the Morello family, pioneers of protection rackets, bizarre rituals and Mafia wars. Before the Five Families who dominated US organized crime for a bloody half-century, there was the surpassingly cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Born into a life of poverty in rural Sicily, Morello became an American nightmare. Mike Dash follows the birth of the Mafia in America from the 1890s to the 1920s, from the wharves of New Orleans to the streets of Little Italy. He brings to life the remarkable villains and unusual heroes of the Mafia’s early years, and does so without ever resorting to fiction or “imagined” history. The First Family is more than just a pulse-quickening Mafia narrative. This is how it really happened.

Mafia and Outlaw Stories from Italian Life and Literature
Mafia and Outlaw Stories from Italian Life and Literature

Author:

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2007-12-29

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1442692855

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first of its kind in English, Mafia and Outlaw Stories from Italian Life and Literature is a selection of readings from Italian fiction and non-fiction writers on the subject of the Mafia. Among the renowned writers featured are Giovanni Verga, Grazia Deledda, Anna Maria Ortese, Livia De Stefani, and Silvana La Spina, as well as famous witnesses such as Felicia Impastato, Letizia Battaglia, and Rita Atria who provide personal, often terrifying testimonies about their experiences with the Mafia. It is a historically diverse examination of criminal and outlaw institutions by some of the most significant figures in Italian literature. These newly translated writings show the ways in which Italians perceived and wrote about the Mafia and crime from the 1880s to the 1990s. Among them are stories dealing with the important legends used by the Mafia as sources for their image and ideology, legends such as the brigand and the Blessed Paulists. Some of the fascinating themes discussed are connections between the Mafia, the State, and the Catholic Church; the Mafia and children; women and the Mafia; the Black Hand; and relations between the Mafia and the Allied Forces during the Second World War. Robin Pickering-Iazzi incorporates an invaluable introduction that charts key periods in the history of Italy and the Mafia, and profiles each of the authors in the collection, noting their major works in Italian as well as those available in English. These and other features make this text especially appropriate for courses in Italian studies. Mafia and Outlaw Stories from Italian Life and Literature takes a unique and intriguing approach to the subject of the Mafia, and offers informed judgements about its historical impact on Italian society and culture.

East Side, West Side
East Side, West Side

Author:

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published:

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9781412844925

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Based on primary source documents, this historical study establishes the interconnections between private violence and political, social, and economic life in New York from 1930-1950. By describing and analyzing both the social world and social system of organized crime, Block provides a new perspective, one based on racial and ethnic stereotypes. The book provides a penetrating look at one of the most misunderstood aspects of American society, important for historians, criminologists and sociologists.

Mafia
Mafia

Author: A.G.D. Maran

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2011-09-02

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1780572360

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The pre-dawn arrests of the last remaining mafiosi in December 2008 signalled the end of the Sicilian Mafia as we know it. In Mafia: Inside the Dark Heart, A.G.D. Maran charts the complete history of the world's most infamous criminal organisation, from its first incarnation as an alternative form of local government in the Sicilian countryside and arguable force for 'good' to the more familiar form that has been immortalised in films such as The Godfather, and its final defeat after a long-awaited change of attitude by the Italian government. The author has used his many Italian contacts and a decade of exhaustive research to bring to life the story of the Sicilian Mafia while also exploring the links to the Cosa Nostra in America. Along the way, he asks many provocative questions, including: Why was Lucky Luciano, the father of modern organised crime, freed from a life sentence in America and deported to Italy, allowing him to organise the international drug trade? Was the Mafia involved in the death of Pope John Paul I? Why did the Mafia murder Roberto Calvi, known as God's Banker? What is the relationship between the Mafia and Freemasonry? Why did successive Italian governments fail to tackle the Mafia? Why did it take 40 years to find the Last Godfathers? These and many other riveting issues are covered in Maran's refreshing new take on a perennially enthralling subject.

The Black Hand
The Black Hand

Author: Robert M. Lombardo

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 0252076753

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Unraveling the truth about the sinister extortion scheme that preyed on innocent Chicagoans

Mafia Brotherhoods
Mafia Brotherhoods

Author: Letizia Paoli

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 0195375262

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Paoli provides a clinically accurate portrait of Mafia behaviour, motivations and structure. This interdisciplinary work of history, politics, economics and sociology, reveals in detail the true face of one of the world's most mythologized criminal organizations.

Hidden Power
Hidden Power

Author: James Cockayne

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-10-01

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0190694815

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What should we make of the outsized role organized crime plays in conflict and crisis, from drug wars in Mexico to human smuggling in North Africa, from the struggle in Crimea to scandals in Kabul? How can we deal with the convergence of politics and crime in so-called 'mafia states' such as Guinea-Bissau, North Korea or, as some argue, Russia? Drawing on unpublished government documents and mafia memoirs, James Cockayne discovers the strategic logic of organized crime, hidden in a century of forgotten political--criminal collaboration in New York, Sicily and the Caribbean. He reveals states and mafias competing - and collaborating -- in a competition for governmental power. He discovers mafias influencing elections, changing constitutions, organizing domestic insurgencies and transnational terrorism, negotiating peace deals, and forming governmental joint ventures with ruling groups. And he sees mafias working with the US government to spy on American citizens, catch Nazis, try to assassinate Fidel Castro, invade and govern Sicily, and playing unappreciated roles in the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the Cuban Missile Crisis.