American Mafia A History of Its Rise to Power

by Reppetto, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780805077988
• ISBN10: 0805077987
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-01-02
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Summary

"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.

Author Biography

Thomas Reppetto is a former Chicago commander of detectives and has been the president of New York City's Citizens Crime Commission for more than twenty years. He is the author of NYPD: A City and Its Police (0-8050-6737-X), a New York Times Notable Book. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "The Most Secret and Terrible Organization in the World"	ix
1. "We Must Teach These People a Lesson": A Murder and Lynching in New Orleans	1	(17)
2. A Place in the Sun: Italian Gangs of New York	18	(18)
3. Italian Squads and American Carabinieri: Law Enforcement Wars on the Mafia	36	(18)
4. Diamond Jim: Overlord of the Underworld	54	(21)
5. In the Footsteps of Petrosino: Big Mike	75	(16)
6. Prohibition: The Mobs Strike a Bonanza	91	(20)
7. The "Get Capone" Drive: Print the Legend	111	(21)
8. Lucky: The Rise and Rise of Charlie Luciano	132	(16)
9. The Commission: The Mobs Go National	148	(14)
10. Racket-Busting: The Dewey Days	162	(19)
11. The Feds: Assessing the Menace of the Mafia	181	(17)
12. Overreaching: Hollywood and Detroit	198	(17)
13. The Prime Minister	215	(19)
14. New Worlds to Conquer: Postwar Expansion	234	(17)
15. TV's Greatest Hits: Senator Kefauver Presents the Mafia	251	(19)
Epilogue: The Decline of the American Mafia	270	(9)
Notes	279	(12)
Bibliography	291	(8)
Acknowledgments	299	(2)
Index	301

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