About the Book
'A book of such hugely ambitious scope’ Financial Times
‘Gingeras’s riveting book delves into the murky origins, effects and legacies of the most terrifying figures in the history of crime’ The i
‘Gingeras writes well and joins the historical dots' Telegraph
Few forces have shaped our world as powerfully – or as secretly – as mafias.
Groups such as La Cosa Nostra, the Medellín Cartel, New York’s Five Families, the Japanese yakuza and Russian vory are notorious, endlessly covered in news stories and popular media. Yet when official histories are written, their role in shaping nations, economies and societies is rarely acknowledged.
In Mafia: A Global History, Ryan Gingeras draws on more than a decade of research to uncover this suppressed underworld history. Crossing centuries and continents, he introduces legendary figures – Al Capone, Pablo Escobar, Du Yuesheng – and explores the conditions, cultures and locales that gave birth to modern mafias: Sicily, Marseille, New York, Colombia, Tokyo. As he reconstructs the rise of a gang or the life of a gangster, he also charts the expanding power of states and the increasingly international reach of trade, crime and law enforcement. After all, governments define what is a crime and who is a criminal, and their agents create the strategies used to limit or defend against their threat.
Beginning with bandits and ending with today’s ‘mafia states’ – and the alarming blurring of lines between gangsters, corporations and political leaders – this sweeping narrative traces the evolution of organised crime in response to industrialisation, globalisation and technological change. By charting the origins, consolidation and transformation of mafias, Gingeras reveals not only where contemporary gangsters come from, but how they became central to our imagination and why they are the uncredited architects of the modern world.
About the Author :
Ryan Gingeras is a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and is an expert in modern Eastern European and Middle East history. He is the author of six books, including The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire and Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire 1912–1923, which was shortlisted for numerous book prizes. He has published on a wide variety of topics related to history and politics in such publications as Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Washington Post, International Journal of Middle East Studies, and more. As a faculty member of the Naval Postgraduate School, he has participated and contributed to research and executive education projects on the behalf of the US Department of State, Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense. In addition to speaking German, Spanish, and Turkish fluently, he also possesses working knowledge of Ottoman Turkish, Albanian, Macedonian, and Greek. Ryan was born in New York City but has spent much of his life in California. He currently lives with his wife and children in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Review :
‘His ambitious new book . . . takes in organised criminals everywhere from Noo Yawk’s goodfellas through to the Chechen mob and the Medellín cocaine cartel, via Ned Kelly, Jamaican Yardies and the Yakuza . . . Gingeras writes well and joins the historical dots . . . for those who want to know how mafias began – especially those as fascinated by it all as Gingeras – this book may prove to be an offer they can’t refuse'
‘A book of such hugely ambitious scope . . . Gingeras is good on ways in which crime responds to the needs of particular cultures at particular times . . . and deploys contextual detail to vivid effect . . . Gingeras paints a convincing picture of an interconnected, increasingly diversified and truly global business which is tightly and apparently irrevocably intertwined, in so many different ways, with the apparatus of the state itself’
‘A history of mafias, suffused with violence, intrigue and secrecy, this is gripping, essential, global and just plain fascinating’
‘An engaging book . . . Mafias have “reflected” and “helped define the making of the modern world”, Mr Gingeras contends, taking readers from classical Rome to modern Las Vegas to bolster his argument’
‘Gingeras considers the rise of clientelist crime and corruption in southern Italy, the US, Southeast Asia and Latin America from the early nineteenth century to the present. He offers a Damon Runyonesque gallery of shakedown artists, payola sharks and nickel-and-dime mobsters . . . impressive . . . well-researched . . . Mafia is an excellent history of all things murderous and mobster’
‘American professor and historian Ryan Gingeras charts a steady course between academic respectability and formulating the odd unexpected sentence that will rock you on your heels . . . The predominant tenor of this impressive book is not doom and gloom but sober realism. Mafias will be with us until men turn into angels’
‘Drawing on more than a decade of research to uncover the suppressed underworld history of mafias, historian Ryan Gingeras presents his findings in this global history of elusive organised crime . . . From ancient bandits to modern-day cartels, the history of the underworld reveals the true history of a nation, one that is often suppressed . . . the sweeping narrative follows the evolution of the criminal underworld across the globe’
‘A wide-ranging history of wannabe Corleones and other kindred criminals . . . A revealing study of organized crime and its many forms’
‘Historian Gingeras (The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire, 2022) offers a historical deep dive into the murky world of gangland, from the gritty streets of the Five Points area of early twentieth-century New York City to ravaged, post-WWII Japan; from drug running to human trafficking. A valuable historical reference on organized crime’
‘Gingeras’s riveting book delves into the murky origins, effects and legacies of the most terrifying figures in the history of crime’
