Five Families
The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires
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4.2 • 257 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former New York Times crime reporter Raab sets a new gold standard for organized crime nonfiction with his outstanding history of the Mafia in New York City. Combining the diligent research and analysis of a historian with the savvy of a beat journalist who has extensive inside sources, the author succeeds at an ambitious task by rendering the byzantine history of New York's five families Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese easily comprehensible to any lay reader. Of necessity, Raab also illuminates the Mafia's origin in 19th-century Sicily and its transition to this country. Throughout his survey of the mob's evolution from simple protection rackets to pump-and-dump stock schemes Raab renders the mobsters (including men less well known than John Gotti, but no less significant) as three-dimensional figures, without glossing over their vicious crimes and their impact on honest citizens. Law enforcement's varying responses as well as society's view of gangsters enrich the narrative, which merits comparison with the classic true-crime writing of Kurt Eichenwald. While Raab surprisingly gives short shrift to the 1980s pizza connection case, which revealed the growing influence of the Sicilian Mafia on America's heroin trade, he otherwise demonstrates mastery of his subject. This masterpiece stands an excellent chance of becoming a bestseller with crossover appeal beyond devoted watchers of The Sopranos. 24 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW.
Customer Reviews
Excellent Book but full of proofreading errors
An excellent reference book that also happens to be a great read!!
Maybe if I downloaded my copy again it won't have as many obvious spelling errors and geographic mistakes.
Enjoyed this book.
Five Families
I believe this is an amazing compilation of the American Italian mafia. I have read my fair share of mafia related books, but when I came across this book I knew right away my nose was going to be buried inside the pages. It is a very great read, and it is sure to not disappoint, for any crime/mafia fan. $10.00 is sure not to be wasted on this amazing piece of work.