Customer Reviews

Capone: The Man and the Era

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If you're looking for a good in-depth study of Al Capone or the Prohibtion beer wars in Chicago, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for a biography that gets wildly sidetracked from its subject and, as an added bonus, offers questionable revisions to the Capone story, this is just the book for you. The story of Capone's "lost" brother "Two-Gun" Hart is nothing really new and Bergreen's new emphasis on him presents the family's fictional account rather than the real story. James Capone, a.k.a. "Two-Gun" Hart, was not the honest lawman Bergreen portrays him as, nor was he was a war hero. Hart lost his respected place in the community of Homer, Nebraska when his tales of wartime heroism were exposed as a sham and he could provide no proof of military service. His tough image as a "two-gun" cop resulted mostly from drunken brawls with Indians who proved tougher than he was. Bergreen devotes a third of the book to this boring fraud who makes brother Al seem, in comparison, a paragon of honesty to those who know the true facts. Another third is devoted to the colorless "Untouchable" Prohibition agent Eliot Ness, who was far less interesting than the character in the fictional TV series and movie. His story would be best told elsewhere. One section of the book deals, inaccurately, with the Depression desperadoes: Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, etc.,--and adds nothing to the Capone story. Bergreen's report on the Thompson submachine gun, the Capone gang's trademark weapon, with its description of heavy, bruising recoil and near-impossibility to control, is a joke to anyone who's ever handled a Model 21 tommy gun. The gang wars, which should occupy center stage in a definite bio of America's most notorious mobster, are treated rather sketchily. Some other family info is way off the mark. And, on the flimsiest of evidence, Bergreen makes Capone both a pawn of the Chicago Heights mob and a cocaine addict. This is a poor excuse for a Capone biography...

This book seemed to be slapped together at the last second.The facts well there aren't many!Capone never took orders from anybody after Torrio was gone.He wasn't a cocaine fiend either and his sister Rose didn't die at birth!Author tries to sensationalize.Not many photos either.

This book deserves better than it has gotten; I am surprised by the vehemence of some of the reviewers' reactions to it. It offers a broad, interesting, historical view of turn of the century New York, then Chicago, early 20th century politics, prohibition, the hero-worship of the Roaring 20's, the mafia, the FBI, syphillis, Alcatraz -- a whole Ragtime-like panorama. It is entertaining and instructive. Those who pan it appear to have a problem with the somewhat sympathetic portrayal of a morally objectionable person or quibble over arcane facts.

Having lived in Lansing, Michigan and spent time in the northwoods of Wisconsin, where Al Capone summered, I can say that the legend of Al Capone is still very much alive in those two locations; he rivals George Washington for having supposedly slept or shot up more places than anyone else. The author captures this aspect of Capone's life, as well as his charismatic, sympathetic Robin Hood-like persona which humanized him and endeared him to a portion of the masses.

I wa not bothered by the diversions of attention to Al Capone's brother, Two Gun Hart and his supposed nemisis, Eliot Ness, and found them interesting and germane to Capone's life story. I had not heard of the brother before but was aware that post-Capone, Ness ended up as a police official in Cleveland. Nor was I bothered by what some call an overly-sympathetic portrayal of Capone; he has aspects that frankly are sympathetic.

What strikes me as most interesting about the author's portrayal of Al Capone is that he shows how Capone -- certainly not stupid, and trained as a bookkeeper -- was the first man to apply systematic business and financial practices to the running of the mob, and increased its bottom line. He also was either more politically astute than those gangsters who came before -- although at times, just as crude in his methods -- or was lucky enough to have blatantly corrupt, receptive mayors in Chicago and Cicero when he came to power.

The author does a good job of showing how the federal government wanted to get Al Capone in the worst way and finally figured out how to do it with the Income Tax Code. The book lays out the dogged determination and methods of the agents who persevered to nail him. In the end, given the author's somewhat sympathetic portrait of Capone, you feel sorry that he got caught, and even sorrier to learn of how he was treated by fellow inmates at Alcatraz. Most biographers seem to gravitate toward either abhorring or loving their subjects and this author is no exception, tending toward the latter.

I recommend this book. Unless you are a Capone fanatic and know all there is to know about him already, the factual presentation will not put you off. I frankly did not know if I was reading the truth or not, but it seemed like it, and it was interesting and I thought, reasonably well-written. I am curious if there is any difference in the texts or otherwise in the newer paperback edition, versus the original hardback, which is what I read.

This was about the most worthless book I have read in a long time. Long, pretentious, unbelievably full of errors. His main theme - that Capone was a 'victom of coicumstances' is horrribly, horribly wrong. Well written, though. Lots of nice photos.

"Capone" not only details the life of Alphonse Capone, and the gangs of Prohibition-era Chicago, but also his family members. The author makes the point, well almost his thesis frankly, that Capone was more than a common thug; he went to great pains to ingratiate himself with Chicagoans (and Floridians when he bought his estate there). This is not a revisionist history, though: the author clearly reminds us that Al had murdered others personally and ordered others to kill, and also profited from prostitution and protection rackets. He was not simply a bootlegger as some romanticized bio's have made him.
An aspect of the Capone legend that must be addressed is his nemesis, at least in the popular conception, Eliot Ness. Bergreen dispatches him to the relative obscurity that Ness historically deserves; it was the IRS quietly working behind the scenes that brought down Capone-not Ness' showboating. The IRA agents who were the real heroes, get their story told in full.

Having said this, there are some shortcomings. Too much space is given to his elder brother "Two-Gun" Hart. As has been pointed out, his reputation is much exaggerrated, and the chapters devoted to him do not show the same research as Capone. Speaking of sources, the author is probably a little too accepting of some statements made by those who were related or simply knew the subject. All in all though, a good overview of Capone's life and death, and the machinations of Prohibition-era Chicago.

Of all the Capone biographies in print, Bergreen's in probably the most complete. He goes into exhaustive detail about the man and the times he lived in. It doesn't have a novelistic thrust and reads more like a history book, but that doesn't detract from it's value as a good source book. If you're more interested in the facts than in speculation, this is the Capone book to read.

They just don't make crooks like they used to. The legendary figures of the Roaring Twenties and Depressing Thirties continue to fascinate us today. They tend to fit into two groups: the lone wolf robbers such as Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde, or the gangsters. Among the gangsters, none were more famous than Al Capone. Of course, legend and reality tend to often conflict with each other, and Laurence Bergreen's highly readable biography Capone separates the fact from the fiction.

Capone was the son of Italian immigrants who lived an impoverished existence in Brooklyn. There were not a lot of options for a youngster like Capone, who would soon get involved with minor league criminality. It would take an eventual move to Chicago (following his mentor, Johnny Torrio) before Capone would became a major crime figure, one who'd pretty much control the city for several years. The grand irony for Capone was that he'd not be brought down because of his bootlegging or murders, but the more mundane crime of income tax evasion (and even that may have not done him in if he'd had better lawyers).

Bergreen portrays Capone as a complex individual, neither fully bad or good, but a hero to some and a villain to others. There were a lot of factors that made Capone the way he was, including a virulent anti-Italian feeling that vilified anyone with that descent, the vast hypocrisies of Prohibition and a police and press force that was inherently corrupt. More than anything, however, was the syphilis (exacerbated by a cocaine addiction) that would lead to mood swings that at first helped give him the aggressiveness he needed to succeed but would soon enough destroy him. Capone would be in his twenties when he reigned supreme. By his early thirties, he'd be in prison and he'd be dead before he was fifty (a relatively long life for a man with his career, but almost all the last decade-and-a-half would be hellish for him).

The key events that Capone is most noted for are detailed in this book, including the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and Capone's infamous baseball bat assault. Bergreen, however, goes beyond just Capone to detail the lives of the folks around him, from his family to his associates (such as the infamous Frank Nitti) to his pursuers (most notably Eliot Ness, who was better at publicity stunts than actually stopping Capone). Bergreen also describes the world Capone occupied, particularly the Chicago that would be the center of his activities.

Capone the book is a pretty comprehensive biography and tops 600 pages plus notes and an index. From my previous experience with Bergreen (with a book about Magellan), I knew he was a good writer and Capone shows the first book wasn't a fluke. If you want to know the truth behind the legend (and it's nothing like The Untouchables), Capone is an entertaining and illuminating read.

This book was a wonderful biography on the most famous gangster in history. Laurence Bergreen tells his story along with others in an unbiased and understandable way. The pure information is exact and undoubtable. A must read if you are a crime buff, doing a research project (as i am), or just wanting to know more about America in the prohibition era

This is an important reference for Chicago lovers. The book is full of geographical, biographical, and historical detail on one of Chicago's most noteworthy and notorious eras. The personality of Capone unifies the story line. All the legendary people and events are placed in their context: Johny Torrio, Eliot Ness, Joe E. Brown, Bugs Moran, the St Valentines Day Massacre, the income tax evasion trials, the Four Deuces, and on and on.

This is one of the most thought-provoking biographies I have ever read. Bergreen has completely rethought the role and character of the gangster in our culture, and in the process turned Al Capone and his complex family into tragic figures who are almost to be pitied. I was literally astounded to read about Al's brother, "Two-Gun" Hart, who was both a Prohibition Agent and Presidential bodyguard. Talk about truth being stranger than fiction! The research is phenomenol, and the book, while a tad long, is completely absorbing.