Customer Reviews

History of the Mafia

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If you are looking for a sensational,titillating account of Mafia activities, full of gore and sleazy details, then avoid this book completely. It is a very scholarly and rational examination of the Mafia's origins and its development into a multinational corporate entity. Those who think of the Mafia as some kind of criminal relic of Sicilian feudalism are likely to have their preconceptions shattered as this book calmly and methodically delineates the interconnections between the Mafia, the Italian Capitalist Establishment and the Italian governing classes. A most fascinating read!

This book is just OK. It is more of a sociological study than a history. This book is more of a supplement to other history books. Read the others first. Then, if you want to know more of the sociological aspects of this topic, you can read this book. I was hoping that it would have additional information on some of the key moments in Cosa Nostra's history, other than those that are already known. In that respect, it was a big disappointment. It did give me a better view as to how the events tranpired. It also is a hard read. Be prepared to think. Be prepared to look for more information.

This ain't a novelesque and gory depiction of the Mafia exploits. Instead, this is a great scholarly, sociological minute depiction of such criminal circle; their origins, activities and effects. It's well cited and clearly exposed.

Caution, this is not a wing ding tale of the Mafia in action. It is a rather scholarly (and often dense) history of this well known and simultanesouly little known criminal enterprise. JDP

A professor of contemporary Italian history at the University of Palermo, Salvatore Lupo wrote "La Storia della Mafia" for other specialists in Italian history and sociology. "The History of the Mafia," translated by Anthony Shugaar, carries over from the original the assumption that the reader shares the author's depth of knowledge of of 19th and 20th century Sicilian politics and sociology. The legibility of Lupo's narrative of incidents suffers from jumping backwards and forwards in chronology to make excursions to related topics before returning to the subject at hand. It is also unfortunate that Lupo wrote the book in dense academic Italian, a dialect that can mystify even educated Italians. An example, as translated:

"If we accept the notion that the depiction of southern Italian anthropology offered here is credible, we should then attempt to distinguish the phenomenon from its context by investigating the way the Mafia organization appropriates cultural codes, instrumentalizes them, modifies them, and turns them into an adhesive to ensure that they remain intact." (p. 11)

So, we should distinguish the Mafia from Sicilian culture by looking at how the Mafia turns cultural codes into an adhesive that holds cultural codes intact? That sludge doesn't make sense as a metaphor, but it is all too characteristic of Lupo's prose. Lupo heightens the effect by extensive quotations from Italian Government reports that add a bureaucratic tone to the work.

Now for the strong points. The book would be an excellent starting point for researching the history of the Italian mafia. It provides outstanding sourcing (36 pages of notes for 275 pages of prose) and a good index. Columbia University Press deserves commendation for producing a physically attractive volume, with particularly legible typeface. In sum, "History of the Mafia" is a better research aid than a narrative history.