The Sicilian Origins Of The Mafia
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| Author | : John Dickie |
| Publisher | : St. Martin's Press |
| Total Pages | : 386 |
| Release | : 2015-03-31 |
| Genre | : True Crime |
| ISBN | : 1466893052 |
The Italian-American mafia has its roots in a mysterious and powerful criminal network in Sicily. While the mythology of the mafia has been widely celebrated in American culture, the true origins of its rituals, laws, and methods have never actually been revealed. John Dickie uses startling new research to expose the secrets of the Sicilian mafia, providing a fascinating account that is more violent, frightening, and darkly comic than anything conceived in popular movies and novels. How did the Sicilian mafia begin? How did it achieve its powerful grip in Italy and America? How does it operate today? From the mafia's origins in the 1860s to its current tense relationship with the Berlusconi government, Cosa Nostra takes us to the inner sanctum where few have dared to go before. This is an important work of history and a revelation for anyone who ever wondered what it means to be "made" in the mob.
| Author | : Raimondo Catanzaro |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 264 |
| Release | : 1992 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : |
The global crime organization which we know as the Mafia traces its origins to the orange groves of the Conca D'Oro, the rich hinterland of Palermo, Sicily, during the early nineteenth century. It was here that the "mafia of the gardens", made up of loose networks of bandits, built their industry of crime. In exploring the Mafia's remarkable rise to power, Raimondo Catanzaro shows how these rural bands successfully opposed the encroaching authority of the Italian government in Sicily during the 1840s, as they infiltrated it, took control of its agencies, and effectively replaced it as the force of law throughout the island. Unlike past chroniclers, Catanzaro sees no break between the traditional rural mafiosi of the nineteenth century and the flashy criminals of today. To the contrary, he demonstrates that the fluid and unstructured composition of the early Mafia enabled it to change its form and thereby survive the many lethal threats it encountered, where a more rigid and unified organization would have failed. This ability to adapt was never more apparent than during the Socialist movement of the Sicilian Fasci in the 1890s. While older, established mafiosi intimidated and murdered local party organizers, younger mafiosi extended the Mafia's power by joining and then subverting these political movements. In his presentation of the recent history of the Mafia Catanzaro makes particularly ingenious use of the Italian Parliament's 40,000 page Commissione Anti-Mafia report to trace the explosive growth of this criminal enterprise since World War II. Here his narrative details the increasing involvement of mafiosi in clandestine commerce, first of tobacco, and then, during the last twodecades, of drugs and arms. Catanzaro presents the hitherto untold story of an organization that continues to affect us to this day.
| Author | : Salvatore Lupo |
| Publisher | : Columbia University Press |
| Total Pages | : 347 |
| Release | : 2009-07-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0231505396 |
When we think of the Italian Mafia, we think of Marlon Brando, Tony Soprano, and the Corleones iconic actors and characters who give shady dealings a mythical pop presence. Yet these sensational depictions take us only so far. The true story of the Mafia reveals both an organization and mindset dedicated to the preservation of tradition. It is no accident that the rise of the Mafia coincided with the unification of Italy and the influx of immigrants into America. The Mafia means more than a horse head under the sheets it functions as an alternative to the state, providing its own social and political justice. Combining a nuanced history with a unique counternarrative concerning stereotypes of the immigrant, Salvatore Lupo, a leading historian of modern Italy and a major authority on its criminal history, has written the definitive account of the Sicilian Mafia from 1860 to the present. Consulting rare archival sources, he traces the web of associations, both illicit and legitimate, that have defined Cosa Nostra during its various incarnations. He focuses on several crucial periods of transition: the Italian unification of 1860 to 1861, the murder of noted politician Notarbartolo, fascist repression of the Mafia, the Allied invasion of 1943, social conflicts after each world war, and the major murders and trials of the 1980s. Lupo identifies the internal cultural codes that define the Mafia and places these codes within the context of social groups and communities. He also challenges the belief that the Mafia has grown more ruthless in recent decades. Rather than representing a shift from "honorable" crime to immoral drug trafficking and violence, Lupo argues the terroristic activities of the modern Mafia signify a new desire for visibility and a distinct break from the state. Where these pursuits will take the family adds a fascinating coda to Lupo's work.
| Author | : A.G.D. Maran |
| Publisher | : Random House |
| Total Pages | : 311 |
| Release | : 2011-09-02 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1780572360 |
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.
| Author | : Diego Gambetta |
| Publisher | : Harvard University Press |
| Total Pages | : 350 |
| Release | : 1996-02-01 |
| Genre | : Business & Economics |
| ISBN | : 0674249046 |
In a society where trust is in short supply and democracy weak, the Mafia sells protection, a guarantee of safe conduct for parties to commercial transactions. Drawing on the confessions of eight Mafiosi, Diego Gambetta develops an elegant analysis of the economic and political role of the Sicilian Mafia.
| Author | : Christopher Duggan |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 322 |
| Release | : 1989 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780300043723 |
The Sicilian mafia is a subject of endless fascination, but few serious books have been written about it. In this provocative work, Christopher Duggan argues that the idea of the mafia is a fiction, born of political calculation and genuine misunderstanding of the behaviour of Sicilians. The first part of the book looks at the development of the idea of the mafia from the 1860s, when the term first appeared, to the Second World War. Although all serious observers realised that there was no organised criminal society in Sicily, Duggan explains why the idea was perpetuated. When the island became part of unified Italy in 1860, hostility to the new state was claimed by officials to be criminally inspired, and they spoke for the first time of 'the Mafia'. The distinctive values of the Sicilians, such as their belief in private justice and unwillingness to cooperate with the police, reinforced the idea of a secret criminal society. From then on, many of Sicily's political and social problems were attributed to this mythical organisation. In the second part of the book, to illustrate the general observations made in the first, Duggan provides a detailed study of the repressive campaign conducted by the fascist government against the mafia in the 1920s. Making use of private papers, police files, and trial proceedings, he concludes that the mafia was primarily an idea exploited for political ends, and that its use only strengthened many Sicilians' deep mistrust of the state. This lively book is a penetrating account of the origins of the mafia myth and the first study of the impact of fascism on Sicily. It will be of great interest to historians of modern Italy, to anthropologists, and to criminologists, as well as to those who are actively engaged in the fight against organised crime. Christopher Duggan was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and Lecturer in Italian History and Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of Italian Society at Reading University. He is co-author, with Denis Mack Smith and Moses Finley, of 'A History of Sicily' (1986).
| Author | : Massimo Picozzi |
| Publisher | : National Geographic Books |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2012-05-29 |
| Genre | : True Crime |
| ISBN | : 0393341968 |
Stunning photographs illuminate the bloody story of the first 150 years. This is the story of the Cosa Nostra: from its origins in Sicily in 1863, through the great wave of Italian immigration to America, to prohibition and the formation of the first mafia families, and to the harsh realities of fascism and the postwar years in Italy where the Cosa Nostra thrived. The image of the mafioso as a “man of honor”—good to the weak, above the laws of the state but subject to a precise code—was firmly rooted in the collective imagination until the 1980s when light was shed on the structure of the vast organization, its unsavory objectives, and the cold-blooded strategies behind its actions. Culled from thousands of archival images, more than 250 photographs and detailed captions tell the story not only of the criminals who have entered popular legend but also of the people who have been victims of the mafia: the judges, police officers, and private citizens who fought back.
| Author | : Marco Gasparini |
| Publisher | : Flammarion-Pere Castor |
| Total Pages | : 0 |
| Release | : 2011 |
| Genre | : Criminals |
| ISBN | : 9782080301505 |
"An illustrated history of the Mafia, focusing on this highly developed criminal organization both as a cult subject and an important social phenomenon. Movie classics like The Godfather epitomize our fascination with the underworld of the Mafia, conjuring images of cigar-smoking dons and shoot-outs in pizzerias. But behind the romantic myths of 'men of honor' and omertà lies a very real world of murder, racketeering, and organized crime. Marco Gasparini traces the evolution of the Mafia from nineteenth-century Sicily to the streets of twentieth-century New York, to the international cartels that rule the illegal drug and arms trades today. In this authoritative volume he exposes the many secrets of an 'octopus' organization that has remained impenetrable for decades, despite the efforts of heroic crime fighters such as New York police officer Joe Petrosino and the similarly ill-fated Italian judge Giovanni Falcone almost a century later. We discover the Mafia's greatest godfathers, underbosses, and 'soldiers, ' as well as its pentiti (or turncoats) and the most formidable wives of Mafiosi. This book not only focuses on the original Sicilian Cosa Nostra and its various branches--such as Al Capone's Chicago Outfit or the still existent Corleonesi--it also features the equally bloody Neapolitan Camorra, which inspired the compelling documentary Gomorrah, and the Japanese Yakuza, the largest organized crime group in the world today, as well as the ever-growing Russian and Chinese 'mafias.' Mafia reveals the multi-faceted reality behind a phenomenon that has sparked the popular imagination for decades."--Amazon.com.
| Author | : Nigel Cawthorne |
| Publisher | : Arcturus Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 371 |
| Release | : 2011-07-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 1848583842 |
The Mafia began on a small island in the Mediterranean, Sicily. It grew to become a major political force in Italy, while its tentacles penetrated every aspect of life in the United States. Through drugs, it spread its influence to Britain, Canada and Australia. And through the gangster movies of Hollywood, including The Godfather and Goodfellas, it permeates popular culture. The History of the Mafia is full of blood-chilling characters, from Al Capone, who ran Chicago during Prohibition, and hitmen Louis Lekpe and Alberto Anastasia who founded Murder, Inc, to Totò Riina, 'boss of bosses', John Gotti, 'the Teflon don', and Bernardo 'The Tractor' Provenzano, who hid out from the law in a farmhouse for 43 years... These were extraordinary men who lived through extraordinary times. The History of the Mafia tells the story of their lives, their families, their codes, their crimes and their cold-blooded murders. A long and enthralling tale, drenched in blood and scored with betrayal.
| Author | : Letizia Paoli |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 312 |
| Release | : 2008-06-01 |
| Genre | : Social Science |
| ISBN | : 0199705097 |
Relying on previously undisclosed confessions of former mafia members now cooperating with the police, Letizia Paoli provides a clinically accurate portrait of mafia behavior, motivations, and structure in Italy. The mafia, Paoli demonstrates, are essentially multifunctional ritual brotherhoods focused above all on retaining and consolidating their local political power base. A truly interdisciplinary work of history, politics, economics, and sociology, Mafia Brotherhoods reveals in dramatic detail the true face of one of the world's most mythologized criminal organizations.
