$7.49
Details
Italy’s Most Powerful Mafias: The History and Legacy of the Cosa Nostra, La Camorra, and ‘Ndrangheta
Author: Charles River Editors
Narrator: Jim Johnston
Unabridged: 3 hr 35 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Findaway Voices
Published: 10/23/2019
Genre: True Crime - Organized Crime
Synopsis
The word “mafia,” Sicilian in origin, is synonymous with Italy, but Italy is home to several different mafias, with three being particularly notorious. While the Cosa Nostra of western Sicily is the most infamous, other powerful groups include the ferocious ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria and the Camorra, the third-largest mafia, which is active in Naples and the Campania region. A “mafia” is loosely defined as a criminal organization that is interested in social, economic and political power, combining elements of a traditional secret society with those of a business, but further levels of nuance are necessary in order to understand these groups. In a general sense, this is because each mafia creates a myth about the development of the organization, which becomes like an unquestionable truth. In essence, part of what makes its members so completely loyal to it is also what makes outsiders so utterly afraid of it.
While all three mafias have initiation rituals dating to the 19th century, the oldest of the three belongs to the Camorra. The rituals date back to 1850, as the Camorra was taking shape in the prisons of southern Italy. In this simple but profound ritual, the new member was told to take an oath over crossed knives and then made to have a dagger fight with another man (either another possible initiate or a current member). However, the blades would be wrapped leaving just the point exposed, so that the only objective would be to draw a faint trace of blood, after which the fight would end. This ritual ceased in 1912, around the time that the Neapolitan Honored Society dissolved itself, and as it reconstituted itself in various formations over the course of the century, it never again returned to those more antiquated rituals. Instead, the group began to exist more as a loose network of criminals, all working for their own enrichment.
by Charles River Editors
Chinese gangs have been a part of the fabric of American Chinatowns since the first Chinese immigrants arrived in the nineteenth century to work on the railroads. Faced with intense racism and systematic oppression from mainstream society, secret s...
Published: 01/30/2021
by Charles River Editors
The word “mafia,” Sicilian in origin,[1] is synonymous with Italy, but Italy is home to several different mafias, with three being particularly notorious. While the Cosa Nostra of western Sicily is the most infamous, other powerful grou...
Published: 10/12/2019
by Charles River Editors
Among America’s most infamous “Public Enemies,” perhaps the most unique and controversial was Kate Barker. With her prominent, hawk-tipped nose and plump, doughy face, framed by a classic dark curly coif and frilly day dresses to ...
Published: 06/18/2020
by Nicholas Pileggi
Nicholas Pileggi’s vivid, unvarnished, journalistic chronicle of the life of Henry Hill—the working-class Brooklyn kid who knew from age twelve that “to be a wiseguy was to own the world,” who grew up to live the highs and lo...
Published: 09/01/1990
by Nicholas Pileggi
Love, greed and betrayal in the Las Vegas mob.From Nicholas Pileggi, author of the bestselling Wiseguy -- the #1 bestseller that later became the hit movie Goodfellas -- comes this brilliantly told tale of love, marriage, adultery, murder and reveng...
Published: 11/01/1995
by Matthias McCarn
Step into Chicago during the 1960s and ’70s, when mobsters influence everyone from strip-club owners to Teamsters, aldermen, judges, and local police. It is a world where good men are corrupted by the irresistible lure of money and power and f...
Published: 01/25/2022
by Ann Rule
From trust to terror... from security to survival... The author of The Stranger Beside Me brings her brilliantly informed understanding of the sociopath to this riveting true crime collection. Only Ann Rule, who unknowingly worked alongside the sma...
Published: 10/22/2013
by John Brian
Deep States limit our individual and collective potential and worsen our most pressing problems. You cannot fully understand Smollett’s scandal without understanding the Deep State that got him off---the first time, at least-- and tried to cov...
Published: 12/23/2021
by Charles River Editors
A pack of men in sharp, tailored suits and dark sunglasses strut down the street. Their eyes are shielded, but the icy scowl on their faces is a clear sign to stay out of their paths. A few of their collars hang open, showing off a glimpse of the vi...
Published: 03/21/2020