Notwithstanding state-run lotteries, and some academicians predictions, illegal numbers gambling continues to thrive. Collating data from police reports, government documents, interviews, and other sources, Liddick (affiliation unspecified) reviews the relevant literature; constructs a sociopolitical history of this key organized crime enterprise; and analyzes such factors as the structure of the gambling market, the law enforcement response, and the impact of numbers gambling on communities. Appends a narrative detailing such operations in New York City, 1960-1969, with tables on Cosa Nostra "family bank" affiliations and territories. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The most ubiquitous feature of Harlem life between the world wars was the game of “numbers.” Thousands of wagers were placed daily. Playing the Numbers tells the story of this illegal form of gambling and the central role it played in the lives of African Americans who flooded into Harlem in the wake of World War I.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 Family secrets emerge as a best-selling author dives into the history of the mob in small-town America. Best-selling author Russell Shorto, praised for his incisive works of narrative history, never thought to write about his own past. He grew up knowing his grandfather and namesake was a small-town mob boss but maintained an unspoken family vow of silence. Then an elderly relative prodded: You’re a writer—what are you gonna do about the story? Smalltime is a mob story straight out of central casting—but with a difference, for the small-town mob, which stretched from Schenectady to Fresno, is a mostly unknown world. The location is the brawny postwar factory town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The setting is City Cigar, a storefront next to City Hall, behind which Russ and his brother-in-law, “Little Joe,” operate a gambling empire and effectively run the town. Smalltime is a riveting American immigrant story that travels back to Risorgimento Sicily, to the ancient, dusty, hill-town home of Antonino Sciotto, the author’s great-grandfather, who leaves his wife and children in grinding poverty for a new life—and wife—in a Pennsylvania mining town. It’s a tale of Italian Americans living in squalor and prejudice, and of the rise of Russ, who, like thousands of other young men, created a copy of the American establishment that excluded him. Smalltime draws an intimate portrait of a mobster and his wife, sudden riches, and the toll a lawless life takes on one family. But Smalltime is something more. The author enlists his ailing father—Tony, the mobster’s son—as his partner in the search for their troubled patriarch. As secrets are revealed and Tony’s health deteriorates, the book become an urgent and intimate exploration of three generations of the American immigrant experience. Moving, wryly funny, and richly detailed, Smalltime is an irresistible memoir by a masterful writer of historical narrative.
“It pours out spicy tales of Mob lore to make its management points, an approach most execs couldn’t refuse.” —New York Post Former mobster Louis Ferrante reveals the surprisingly effective management techniques of organized crime and explains how to apply them in any legitimate business. As an associate of the Gambino Family, he was part of some of the biggest heists in mob history. His talent for management led bosses like John Gotti to rely on him. Now he offers time-tested Mafia wisdom based on true stories, such as: • Three can keep a secret (if two are dead): Build trust with your colleagues. • You don’t always need a gun to hit a target: Lead people without force. • It’s never personal: When circumstances demand it, never hesitate to pull the trigger.
This book is a unique teaching tool that takes math lovers on a journey designed to motivate kids (and kids at heart) to learn the fun of factoring and prime numbers. This volume visually explores the concepts of factoring and the role of prime and composite numbers. The playful and colorful monsters are designed to give children (and even older audiences) an intuitive understanding of the building blocks of numbers and the basics of multiplication. The introduction and appendices can also help adult readers answer questions about factoring from their young audience. The artwork is crisp and creative and the colors are bright and engaging, making this volume a welcome deviation from standard math texts. Any person, regardless of age, can profit from reading this book. Readers will find themselves returning to its pages for a very long time, continually learning from and getting to know the monsters as their knowledge expands. You Can Count on Monsters is a magnificent addition for any math education program and is enthusiastically recommended to every teacher, parent and grandparent, student, child, or other individual interested in exploring the visually fascinating world of the numbers 1 through 100.
In the early 90s, Somalia was a country in chaos. As civil war raged, warlords carved out their own territories, enforcing their will through militia gangs, while famine compounded the situation. As a joint US–UN mission struggled to maintain order, the warlords began to unite behind Mohamed Farrah Aidid, who was to proclaim himself President of Somalia and embark upon a campaign to force the peacekeepers out of the country. Operations against Aidid and his strongholds intensified, culminating in the famous Operation Gothic Serpent, and the rescue mission to save a downed Black Hawk helicopter carried out by US Rangers and Delta Force operatives. Day of the Rangers, the latest companion for Force on Force, provides wargamers with all the background, orders of battle, and scenarios they need to immerse themselves in the epic battle for Mogadishu.
This edition brings to you Le Bon's two most celebrated works, "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" and "The Psychology of Revolution", which made a breakthrough in what is now known as crowd psychology. Le Bon theorised about a new entity, "psychological crowd", which emerges from incorporating the assembled population not only forms a new body but also creates a collective "unconsciousness". As a group of people gather together and coalesces to form a crowd, there is a "magnetic influence given out by the crowd" that transmutes every individual's behaviour until it becomes governed by the "group mind"._x000D_ Gustave Le Bon was a French polymath whose areas of interest included anthropology, psychology, sociology, medicine, invention, and physics. Ignored or maligned by sections of the French academic and scientific establishment during his life due to his politically conservative and reactionary views, Le Bon was critical of democracy and socialism. Le Bon's works were influential to such disparate figures as Theodore Roosevelt and Benito Mussolini, Sigmund Freud and José Ortega y Gasset, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.
