78 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Superb and Detailed Overview, June 19, 2006
The prior reviews that seem peeved that this book offers little in the way of revelations or breakthrough analysis are accurate. If you are one of the country's great experts, OK, you've heard it before; don't buy the book.
For everyone else, this is an excellent review of the New York Mafia, what they did, who did it, and the enforcement brought against them. I own over a hundred organized crime books, and this is the one I would recommend to someone looking for the best possible overview of the Five Families. It is comprehensive, factual and well-written.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, but..., April 8, 2006
This is a great book on the history of the American Mafia with some new insights on its origins and how it came to the US, also how it functioned and bled New York for 70+ years. Raab has a done a masterful job of combing through the myriad newspaper, court dcuments and sources out there and assembled a chronological narrative of each of New York's Mafia Families. It is a rivetting read, entertaining and informative. It gives new insights into the semi-legit rackets and old history like Apalachin, JFK's assassination, Luciano's war-time aid to the US, and Jimmy Hoffa. Of particulr value is how the new focus on terrorism post 9/11 may give the Mafia a chance to regroup.
However, these strengths are also its weaknesses. It focuses exclusively on New York City. It says how New York made satellites of Mafia Families in other cities but never explains how things worked in other cities or how the New York Families subjugated other mafia groups around the country. It also would have been intersting to learn how New York mafia groups related to and cooperated with families in other cities, especially Chicago. It never explains how the New York Families could run crews in other cities with active Mafia Families, like Newark and California.
Raab also relies heavily on FBI and Court transcripts, and sometimes his explaining the investigations and pursuit of the gangsters is too long and pulls the book off track. We want to learn about the Mafia and how it functions, not read a police investigative-procedural drama.
The most glaring mis-step is Raab's over-simplification and neglect of other criminal organizations, especially Meyer Lansky, Moe Dalitz and other Jewish gagnsters. He falls into the unsophisticated, overly simple and even anti-Semitic line of how Meyer Lansky, Moe Dalitz and other Jewish mobsters were merely "junior partners" and "accountants" for the Mafia. Lansky, Shapiro and others were major bootleggers and labor racketeers in their own right. They worked in conjuction and on equal footing with Luciano and Mafia gangs. Jewish and Italian gangsters during Prohibition and after formed a symbiotic partnership. Lansky never would have been as successful as he was without his partnership with Luciano, and vice versa. Lansky and Dalitz took their bootlegging profits and began building Las Vegas, Luciano and Cstello and other Mafia magnates were equal partners to be sure. The hit on Siegel almost certainly came from Lansky. Lansky and Dalitz needed no financial backing or approval from the Five Famlies. The Mafia's later success in skimming the Vegas casinos would not have been possible without the pioneering efforts of the multi-ethnic and sophisticated syndicate that emerged from prohibition.
Raab also completely ignores major bootleg/gambling syndicates such as Lansky/Siegel, Legs Daimond or Waxy Gordon in New York, Boo Boo Hoff in Philadelphia, Longy Zwillman in Newark, Moe Dalitz in Cleveland or the Purple Gang in Detroit. These syndicates needed no backing or permission from any Mafia family to operate and run successful criminal enterprises. After Prohibition, Lansky, Dalitz and others continued to engage in lucrative financial rackets, money laundering, and major casino operations in Las Vegas, the Bahamas, Switzerland and Monte Carlo into the 1970's. These sophisticated white collar crimes dwarfed the more provincial operations of extortion, loan sharking and drug pushing engaged in by most street crews of New York's Five Families. By suggesting that these Jewish criminals could only at the most serve as trusted accountats to Mafia families not only falls into worn out offensive stereotypes but also gives an inccurate picture of the true nature of organized crime.
Raab also gives short shrift to Russian, Asian and multi-national organized crime syndicates operating in the nation today. In making the Mafia the center of organized crime activities he has given a myopic picture of organized crime, past and present. Law eforcement's high profile and much touted focus on the 5 Mafia gangs has probably given these newer criminal syndicates room to grow and expand from the 1980's through today.
Raab sets out to write a history of New York's 5 Mafia Families and he succeeds in spades. His only weakness is taking the mystique of the mafia at face value and portraying them as the end-all and be-all of organized crime in New York and throughout the country.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good journalism, but not good storytelling., January 25, 2007
This review is from: Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires (Paperback)
Selwyn Raab spent his career covering organized crime and the depth of his understanding of the five families is very clear in his writing. I bought this book because I love mob movies, crime history and the Soprano's. I was hoping that it would tell the story of the US mafia and it's development trough the last century. On a factual basis, it succeeds to a large degree, but it's structure gets in the way of my being able to enjoy it. I can't tell if this is an artifact of the topic, a forced translation of newspaper reporting into book form or uneven editing. The story of the American mob is in many ways the story of relationships and rivalries. With such a large cast of characters and so much time to cover, there is bound to be a certain amount of shifting between people and places. However the organization of the book makes it feel like your reading an assembly of anecdotes rather than a coherent narrative. The chapters shift focus from family to family, repeat certain details from one chapter to the next and lacks a narrative thread to hold it all together. This is not a trivial complaint for a book that's more than 700 pages long.
If you like details, good reporting and are willing to do a little fishing around, this is a great look at the New York mafia. If you get a little impatient with shifting emphasis and weak narrative structure, look for something else.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
