The system producing mafia is cruel and curious. It parallels government in some respects, and intertwines government in other respects. Like some governments, its operators rely on control of concentrated and effective means of coercion to keep the bulk of the population in line. Like some governments, the beneficiaries of the system, directly or indirectly, tax the producers of wealth--the agricultural workers. And, like many governments, the system permits each of the operators to scoop some of the proceeds from the flow toward the top. The Sicilian phenomenon of mafia is over a century old. In this study, Blok closes in on the circumstances that created mafia and singles out the structures that keep it thriving in a Sicilian village he knows, loves, and grieves for.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fitting the Mafia in the big picture,
By
This review is from: The Mafia of a Sicilian Village 1860-1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs (Paperback)
If your interest in the Mafia is limited to reading over and over again, Puzo type romances on taciturn godfathers and headless horses, this is definitely not the book for you. But if you are really interested in understanding how it is that a modern state will allow violent criminals literally to get away with torture and murder and will suffer a large region with rich resources to remain so poor that for four years in the 1990s it had no growth but actually went backwards, this is a book to read. And if it occurs to you that it's a very sad thing when, in a rich and beautiful land, the child that was you, along with the friends of your childhood, must quit your families and community to go far away to work long hours in menial jobs, lonely and despairing, then this book will show you how this happens.
What is really different about Anton Blok's book, and can make it a difficult read for some people, is that Blok is a cultural anthropologist writing mainly for scholars specialised in his area, but hoping that what he has to say will somehow be picked up by other interested people in the community: basically he studies how people come to live and work together in a society, how they develop different kinds of dependencies on each other, how these dependencies influence the way they conduct themselves with one another, and how this all changes over time. To get their information, anthropologists like Blok go and live in specific communities, listening to the people talking about their worries, hopes, fears, joys, and observing the ways that they respond to things that happen to them: if they have a row with a neighbour do they blow his head off? Or do they go and see a community lawyer? Whichever course they adopt will tell you a lot about the relationships between them and everyone else in their community. Generally speaking, like Blok, you have to follow the land trail back to the beginning. Who were the biggest landsnatchers? Who didn't have any land at all. And what people were in between them, between the top and bottom. And how did they relate to each other. You can be sure the big landholders didn't kiss the hands of those without land. It was the other way round. Who got the guns. Who kept them. Who lost them. Why? When outsiders came along looking for pickings, whom did they make pacts with? The poor landless ones? Would you? And if you were a poor landless one blessed with brains, keen to get on in life, whom would you join? Would you make links horizontally, with people like yourself, or vertically, with people above or below you? If you just sit and think of all the people you have contact with in a week, and then work out what kind of connection you have with them and why, and how stable your connections are, you'll be thinking like Anton Blok and be on your way to understanding the mafia. The only reason I didn't give his book five stars is that he didn't look more closely at the Church's connections with the villagers and the mafia. And that's mightily important. But he's gone closer than most other writers to the nub of the matter. Some anthropologists specialise in studies of people in cities. A very famous and very readable book by an American anthropologist, Oscar Lewis, is a Penguin Classic - "The children of Sanchez", about a family of poor Mexicans living in Mexico City. It reads like a novel and was a best seller when it came out in the 1960s or 70s. If you look at the appendices at the back in Blok's book you'll find normal stories of the people in the village. He calls them case studies. They're perfectly readable. And then just dip into bits and pieces that catch your eye, then spread out from there. You'll be surprised how much you'll find interesting. Give it a go.
5.0 out of 5 stars
When distrust prevails, vigilante societies arise.,
By Sicilian maiden "jac" (Southern California, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mafia of a Sicilian Village 1860-1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs (Paperback)
Exactly what I was looking for. Very informative.
And to think what might have been if they could have just trusted their neighbors and one another. A protection system arose out of distrust for others. Sounds like another form of a gang society. How different are they than the 9th Street Gang who mark their territory and distrust anyone who enters? This observation is from a descendent of a "campieri" - one who protected the fields.
2 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Anton Blok's Mafia Madness,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860-1960: A Study of Violent Peasant Entrepreneurs (Pavilion) (Paperback)
Well, this book had the possibility to be incredible, dealing with the Sociological aspect of the Sicilian Mafia and it's affect on the villages it thrived in, but it fell flat. Blok found several ways to make an interesting subject long-winded and dull. He discussed everything from the landforms surrounding the villages, to the crops that some mafioso planted, but he seemed to swerve around all interesting and relevant information. Where this book may have dealt deeply with external conditions and their effect on the mafia, this held little interest for me. It held it's ranking of six (6) by remaining incredibly factual, and doing an excellent analysis of the different levels of mafioso. If you like the subject, or are related to one of the banditos in the book, i'd recommend it, but if not, stick to Stepen King.
banordqu@piper.hamline.edu
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