Organized Crime in Chicago

Organized Crime in Chicago PDF Author: Robert M. Lombardo
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252094484
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread "alien conspiracy" theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers. Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago.

Organized Crime in Chicago

Organized Crime in Chicago PDF Author: Robert M. Lombardo
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252094484
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive sociological explanation for the emergence and continuation of organized crime in Chicago. Tracing the roots of political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in Chicago and other large American cities, Robert M. Lombardo challenges the dominant belief that organized crime in America descended directly from the Sicilian Mafia. According to this widespread "alien conspiracy" theory, organized crime evolved in a linear fashion beginning with the Mafia in Sicily, emerging in the form of the Black Hand in America's immigrant colonies, and culminating in the development of the Cosa Nostra in America's urban centers. Looking beyond this Mafia paradigm, this volume argues that the development of organized crime in Chicago and other large American cities was rooted in the social structure of American society. Specifically, Lombardo ties organized crime to the emergence of machine politics in America's urban centers. From nineteenth-century vice syndicates to the modern-day Outfit, Chicago's criminal underworld could not have existed without the blessing of those who controlled municipal, county, and state government. These practices were not imported from Sicily, Lombardo contends, but were bred in the socially disorganized slums of America where elected officials routinely franchised vice and crime in exchange for money and votes. This book also traces the history of the African-American community's participation in traditional organized crime in Chicago and offers new perspectives on the organizational structure of the Chicago Outfit, the traditional organized crime group in Chicago.

The Everything Mafia Book

The Everything Mafia Book PDF Author: Scott M Dietche
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1605507229
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
"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."

Into the Heart of the Mafia

Into the Heart of the Mafia PDF Author: David Lane
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847651992
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Lane shows how globalisation has transformed the Mafia into more than simply a local phenomenon. It describes in painful detail the daily accommodation to Mafia pressure endured by priests, politicians and prosecutors, businessmen, trade unionists and ordinary citizens. At the same time he incorporates a portrait of the South's long and tumultuous history and powerful flavours to provide a richly coloured portrait of a European region under siege.

Beyond The Mafia

Beyond The Mafia PDF Author: Alan Balboni
Publisher: Shepperson Nevada History
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
When Beyond the Mafia first appeared in 1996 it was hailed as a significant contribution to the history of Las Vegas and of ethnic minorities in America. Author Alan Balboni traces the history of Italians in Las Vegas from the founding of the city in 1905, recording their activities in the fledgling settlement. As Las Vegas grew, Italian Americans participated in every aspect of the city’s society and economy, including construction, retail establishments, hotels, and—after the statewide legalization of gambling in 1931—the casino industry. Basing his research on well over a hundred interviews, as well as the records of Italian American organizations, public agencies, and other sources, Balboni has produced a sparkling and thoroughly documented account of the history of one of Las Vegas’s most progressive and productive ethnic minorities. This new paperback edition includes an afterword by the author that brings the story of Las Vegas’s Italian Americans up to the present.

The Mexican Mafia

The Mexican Mafia PDF Author: Tony Rafael
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594032734
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
It has been called the most dangerous gang in American history. In Los Angeles alone it is responsible for over 100 homicides per year. Although it has fewer than 300 members, it controls a 40,000-strong street army that is eager to advance its agenda. It waves the flag of the Black Hand and its business is murder. Although known on the streets for over fifty years, the Mexican Mafia has flown under the radar of public awareness and has flourished beneath a deep cover of secrecy. Members are forbidden even to acknowledge its existence. For the first time in its history, the Mexican Mafia is now getting the attention it has been striving to avoid. In this briskly written and thoroughly researched book, Tony Rafael looks at the birth and the blood-soaked growth of this criminal enterprise through the eyes of the victims, the dropouts, the cops and DAs on the front lines of the war against the Mexican Mafia. The first book ever published on the subject, Southern Soldiers is a pioneering work that unveils the operations of this California prison gang and describes how it grew from a small clique of inmates into a transnational criminal organization. As the first prison gang ever to project its power beyond prison walls, the Mexican Mafia controls virtually every Hispanic neighborhood in Southern California and is rapidly expanding its influence into the entire Southwest, across the East Coast, and even into Canada. Riding a wave of unchecked immigration and seemingly beyond the reach of law enforcement, the Mexican Mafia is poised to become the Cosa Nostra of twenty-first-century America.

Mafia Life

Mafia Life PDF Author: Federico Varese
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190868937
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Today, mafias operate across the globe, with hundreds of thousands of members and billions of dollars in revenue. From Hong Kong to New York, these vast organizations spread their tentacles into politics, finance and everyday life. Criminologist Federico Varese draws on a lifetime's research to give us access to some of the world's most secretive societies. Mixing reportage with case studies and historical insights, this is the story of mafia as it really is: filled with boredom and drama, death and disaster, ambition and betrayal.

Mountain Mafia

Mountain Mafia PDF Author: Betty L. Alt
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1984585207
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
MOUNTAIN MAFIA IS A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BLACK HAND AND MAFIA in the Rocky Mountain region. It brings to life some of the more colorful leaders in the West's organized crime operations throughout the 20th century, including Roma, Colletti, and the Smaldones. Especially examined is the famous court case of "Scotty" Spinuzzi, who was acquitted of murder "because no one saw the bullet leave the gun." Also mentioned is the connection these western mobsters had with notorious crime members in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

The Bomber Mafia

The Bomber Mafia PDF Author: Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316296937
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A “truly compelling” (Good Morning America) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war—from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History. In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history. Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal? In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?” Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.

Mafia Summit

Mafia Summit PDF Author: Gil Reavill
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250021103
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
The true story of how a small-town lawman in upstate New York busted a Cosa Nostra conference in 1957, exposing the Mafia to America. In a small village in upstate New York, mob bosses from all over the country—Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci, Cuba boss Santo Trafficante, and future Gambino boss Paul Castellano—were nabbed by Sergeant Edgar D. Croswell as they gathered to sort out a bloody war of succession. For years, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had adamantly denied the existence of the Mafia, but young Robert Kennedy immediately recognized the shattering importance of the Apalachin summit. As attorney general when his brother JFK became president, Bobby embarked on a campaign to break the spine of the mob, engaging in a furious turf battle with the powerful Hoover. Detailing mob killings, the early days of the heroin trade, and the crusade to loosen the hold of organized crime, this momentous story will captivate fans of Gus Russo and Luc Sante. Reavill scintillatingly recounts the beginning of the end for the Mafia in America and how it began with a good man in the right place at the right time. “The best, and best-written, true-crime story I’ve ever read. It’s as suspenseful, detailed, racy, and knowing as a novel by Hammett or Chandler.” —Howard Frank Mosher, award-winning author of North Country “A close investigation into the crime bosses’ upstate New York summit and its grisly aftermath, Reavill’s book accurately recreates one of the golden eras of American organized crime.” —Publishers Weekly

Mafia Movies

Mafia Movies PDF Author: Dana Renga
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487510470
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 459

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Book Description
The mafia has always fascinated filmmakers and television producers. Al Capone, Salvatore Giuliano, Lucky Luciano, Ciro Di Marzio, Roberto Saviano, Don Vito and Michael Corleone, and Tony Soprano are some of the historical and fictional figures that contribute to the myth of the Italian and Italian-American mafias perpetuated onscreen. This collection looks at mafia movies and television over time and across cultures, from the early classics to the Godfather trilogy and contemporary Italian films and television series. The only comprehensive collection of its type, Mafia Movies treats over fifty films and TV shows created since 1906, while introducing Italian and Italian-American mafia history and culture. The second edition includes new original essays on essential films and TV shows that have emerged since the publication of the first edition, such as Boardwalk Empire and Mob Wives, as well as a new roundtable section on Italy’s “other” mafias in film and television, written as a collaborative essay by more than ten scholars. The edition also introduces a new section called “Double Takes” that elaborates on some of the most popular mafia films and TV shows (e.g. The Godfather and The Sopranos) organized around themes such as adaptation, gender and politics, urban spaces, and performance and stardom.