Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
Audiobook12 hours
American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power
Written by Thomas Reppetto
Narrated by Paul Costanzo
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
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-World War II era-that is as exciting 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 octopus-like 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.
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 octopus-like 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.
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Reviews for American Mafia
Rating: 3.7499999789473684 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
38 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Must listen. Required for anyone interested in the subject. Great book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lots of good info. Read like a textbook though. Not bad.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good history lesson and great book I recommend this on