American Mafia

American Mafia
Author: Thomas Reppetto
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 478
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1250125596

"Reppetto's book earns its place among the best . . . he brings fresh context to a familiar story worth retelling." —The New York Times Book Review Organized crime—the Italian American kind—has long been a source of popular entertainment and legend. Now Thomas Reppetto provides a balanced history of the Mafia's rise—from the 1880s to the post-WWII era—that is as exciting and readable as it is authoritative. Structuring his narrative around a series of case histories featuring such infamous characters as Lucky Luciano and Al Capone, Reppetto draws on a lifetime of field experience and access to unseen documents to show us a locally grown Mafia. It wasn't until the 1920s, thanks to Prohibition, that the Mafia assumed what we now consider its defining characteristics, especially its octopuslike tendency to infiltrate industry and government. At mid-century the Kefauver Commission declared the Mafia synonymous with Union Siciliana; in the 1960s the FBI finally admitted the Mafia's existence under the name La Cosa Nostra. American Mafia is a fascinating look at America's most compelling criminal subculture from an author who is intimately acquainted with both sides of the street.

American Mafia: Chicago

American Mafia: Chicago
Author: William Griffith
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2013-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1493006045

Everyone knows stories about the American Mafia and its varied forms of crime, from racketeering to stock manipulation to murder. American Mafia: Chicago explores the Windy City, strolling through its neighborhoods and imagining scenes from the past—telling the stories of the men, women, and families and revealing the events behind the legends and the history of the families' beginnings and founding members. Featuring the most fascinating stories from the early days, when loosely-organized, incredibly secretive gangs terrorized neighborhoods with names like Little Hell, through the mob’s headiest years, when Al Capone and his men pretty well controlled the city, American Mafia: Chicago offers tantalizing glimpses into the era when Chicago was ruled by gangs with their ever-twisting allegiances and tangled webs of relationships. Most of the buildings are gone now. But the stories are still there, if you know where to look.

Five Families

Five Families
Author: Selwyn Raab
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 810
Release: 2014-05-13
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1429907983

The New York Times bestseller chronicling the history of NYC’s infamous five mafia families is now the basis for the upcoming The HISTORY® Channel documentary series American Godfathers: The Five Families. Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals and generational changes that produced violent and unreliable leaders and recruits. A twenty year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century. Selwyn Raab's Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the reader right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.

Breakshot

Breakshot
Author: Kenny Gallo
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 516
Release: 2010-11-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1439195838

Gallo made millions for New York's Colombo Mafia family before becoming an undercover FBI informant. In "Breakshot," he captures the American underworld in all its tawdry spectacle.

Busting the Mob

Busting the Mob
Author: James B. Jacobs
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 1996-10
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0814742300

She may have had a soap opera private life, which included a very public marriage and breakup with George Jones, among other things, but Tammy Wynette still managed to turn out 17 number one singles during the late '60s and early '70s, the classics "Stand by Your Man," "D-I-V-O-R-C-E," and "Bedtime Story" being just three of them, each of which is compiled in this two-disc set of essential tracks. ~ Steve Leggett

The Mafia

The Mafia
Author: Nate Hendley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2013-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN:

Based on original sources and research, not legends and myth, this book presents a lively, in-depth analysis of how the American Mafia epitomizes organized crime. Whether it's supplying illicit drugs, alcohol during Prohibition, gambling, prostitution, or even loans to those with bad credit, the Mafia has established itself as a part of the fabric of American society, politics, and economics for over a century. The Mafia continues to exist not only because of their immense power that allows their criminal organization to defy law enforcement, but because demand remains strong for what they offer. This book utilizes verifiable information about the Mafia based on newspaper and magazine accounts, police and FBI documents, court records, and the author's own original research to offer a deeper analysis of "the Mob" that provides historical, social, economic and cultural context. Fascinating biographical sketches that profile well-known Mafiosi such as Charles "Lucky" Luciano and John Gotti are also presented.

Mobsters, Unions, and Feds

Mobsters, Unions, and Feds
Author: James B. Jacobs
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2006
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0814742734

The first book to document organized labor and the massive federal clean-up effort.

Gotti's Rules

Gotti's Rules
Author: George Anastasia
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2015-01-27
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0062346881

From the New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Honor and The Last Gangster—“one of the most respected crime reporters in the country” (60 Minutes)—comes the sure to be headline-making inside story of the Gotti and Gambino families, told from the unique viewpoint of notorious mob hit-man John Alite, a close associate of Junior Gotti who later testified against him. In Gotti’s Rules, George Anastasia, a prize-winning reporter who spent over thirty years covering crime, offers a shocking and very rare glimpse into the Gotti family, witnessed up-close from former family insider John Alite, John Gotti Jr.’s longtime friend and protector. Until now, no one has given up the kind of personal details about the Gottis—including the legendary “Gotti Rules” of leadership—that Anastasia exposes here. Drawing on extensive FBI files and other documentation, his own knowledge, and exclusive interviews with insiders and experts, including mob-enforcer-turned-government-witness Alite, Anastasia pokes holes in the Gotti legend, demystifying this notorious family and its lucrative and often deadly machinations. Anastasia offers never-before-heard information about the murders, drug dealing, and extortion that propelled John J. Gotti to the top of the Gambino crime family and the treachery and deceit that allowed John A. “Junior” Gotti to follow in his father’s footsteps. Told from street level and through the eyes of a wiseguy who saw it all firsthand, the result is a riveting look at a family whose hubris, violence, passion, and greed fueled a bloody rise and devastating fall that is still reverberating through the American underworld today. Gotti’s Rules includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.

The First Family

The First Family
Author: Mike Dash
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 391
Release: 2011-06-09
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1849835861

Before Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, there was the one-fingered, cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Had it not been for Morello, the world may never have heard of 'men of honour', the code of omertaor Mafia wars. This explosive book tells the story of the first family of New York, and how this extended close-knit clan of racketeers and murderers left the backwaters of Sicily to successfully establish themselves as the founding godfathers of the New World. First Family will explain in thrilling, characterful detail how the American Mafia established itself so successfully. Combining strong narrative and raw violence - set against the raucous bustle of early twentieth-century New York, and the impoverished rural life of nineteenth-century Sicily - this impeccably researched, groundbreaking study of a crucial period of American history is a compelling portrait of the early years of organised crime.

The Everything Mafia Book

The Everything Mafia Book
Author: Scott M Dietche
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2009-03-18
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1605507229

"Millions of television and movie viewers have shown that Americans continue to be fascinated by the remarkableùand often sordidùworld of the Mafia. This book takes you beyond fiction and tabloid accounts and relates the true-life accounts of all the major players in the American Mafia. From Al Capone to John Gotti, you will come away with a better understanding of AmericaÆs most notorious crime families. This book features colorful information on: The Sicilian Mafia The ôFirst Familyö of the American Mafia The ôrealö Untouchables The mob and politicians The five New York families Packed full of up-to-date gangster information, this guide will satisfy even the most ardent true-crime enthusiasts."