Customer Reviews

Mobsters and Gangsters: Organized Crime in America, from Al Capone to Tony Soprano

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I bought this book for a research project for school, and ended up having to redo my research. This book provides nice prohibition era photos and other such pictures, but the information is purely faulty. First off, when they were talking about Capone, they were totally off. Capone had a stand-in son who he took out in public, he never killed "thousands of people", and the St. Valentine's day massacre was headed by Jack McGurn, (not Jake), and involved 4 men (not 5). The rest of the magazine was the same. Also, i sensed a very biased few, they worshipped Eliot Ness and called Capone basically a brute. Maybe Life should have researched this a little before printing, eh?

What we have here is a typical Time-Life pop-history book. Poorly researched, strewn with errors and superficial commentary but tons of great photos. The picture of the James gang is bogus, however. It's fun to look at but little more.

Even though I haven't read this book in it's entirety yet, I'm fascinated by it. I've always had a sick fascination with the mobster world. It's a thoroughly comprehensive book.