The Mobs and the Mafia

The illustrated history of organized crime

Messick Hank and Goldblatt Burt

Hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated.

The seeds of organized crime in the United States were sown in the early years of this century, with the arrival in North America of a tide of European immigrants. From the urban slums in which they settled there emerged a breed of hungry first-generation Americans, eager to find short cuts to wealth. These men became the mobsters and racketeers whose organizations subsequently penetrated every level of American society.
Their aims were just like those of any respectable businessman: their methods were less restrained. Their special genius was their ability to adapt to changing economic and social conditions.
The pre-1914 era saw the "white slavery" empires of men like Big Jim Colosimo.
Prohibition, in the twenties, encouraged the growth of powerful mobs like The Purple Gang and The Cleveland Syndicate, and saw the emergence of such ruthless racketeers as Dutch Schultz, Meyer Lansky, "Legs" Diamond and the man whose name is synonymous with organized crime, Al Capone. The thirties and forties witnessed the birth of The Syndicate, The Mob and its terrifying enforcement arm, Murder Inc. In the fifties and sixties, under intense pressure from law enforcement agencies and undermined by "canaries" like Joe Valachi, The Syndicate extended its influence to the Bahamas and turned to drug trafficking.
Complete with biographical details of such tsars of crime as Arnold 'The Brain" Rothstein, Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano and Albert Anastasia and a gallery of dramatic pictures, THE MOBS AND THE MAFIA offers a a penetrating study of the American underworld.