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Pseudo-Intellectual

Jim's Pseudo-Intellectual Book Club: Volume XXIV - Five Families

Posted by: Jim Dey

Friday, July 7, 2006 11:44 AM

OK, it's time for a sitdown, and the good news is that we don't have to worry about the feds listening in. Indeed, they're welcome because it's time for another recommenation from Jim's Pseudo-Intellectual Book Club.
Today's choice is a story about families, but these families won't remind anyone of The Waltons. We're talking Mafia families, and they're a highly functional, dysfunctional lot, taking in millions of dollars per year from their illicit operations and defying relentless efforts by the federal government to put them out of business.
Selwyn Raab was for years a crime reporter for The New York Times and an expert on organized crime. Now he's put the whole story together in one impressive package, "Five Families: the Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires."
It's terrific.
Raab traces the creation of the Mafia back to its roots in Italy and describes its brilliant decentralized corporate structure, which is based under the control of the five families (The Commission) in New York City and stretches all across the country. (In Chicago, organized crime is called "The Outfit," but the bosses there answer to bosses in the Big Apple.)
The Mafia has been relentlessly romanticized over the years in books and movies, with "The Godfather" series being the best example. But there's not much to admire in an organization that enslaves businesses and labor unions, corrupts the police and courts and enforces its multiple businesses with murderous ferocity.
Nonetheless, it's a grimly fascinating story of energetic and creative criminal entrepreneurs who operated without much interference from law enforcement for decades. (Former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover refused even to acknowledge the Mafia's existence until it could no longer be denied.)
This is great stuff, the best of which are the numerous profiles of the gangsters themselves, guys like Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, John Gotti and Vincent "The Chin" Gigante and the investigations that brought them down. If you find the subject of crime in America interesting and the lore of the Mafia intriguing, this is right up your alley.
It's the closest you'll ever get to a ringside seat at a Commission meeting without running the risk of getting whacked.
Here are previous recommendations from Jim's Pseudo-Intellectual Book Club:
[–] "Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission" by Hampton Sides.
[–] "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" by Edmund Morris.
[–] "A Night to Remember" by Walter Lord.
[–] "April 1865: The Month That Saved America" by Jay Winik.
[–] "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand.
[–) "Lindbergh" by A. Scott Berg.
[–] "The Kennedy Men: 1901-1963" by Laurence Leamer.
[–] "The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case" by Sam Roberts.
[–] "Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy" by Jane Leavy.
[–] "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich.
[–] "Harry & Ike: The Partnership That Remade the Post-War World" by Steve Neal.
[–] "Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game" by Michael Lewis.
[–] "Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone" by Martin Dugard.
[–] "In Harms Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors" by Doug Stanton.
[–] "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34." by Bryan Burrough.
[–] "Flags of our Fathers," by James Bradley.
[–] "Cary Grant: A Biography" by Marc Elliot.
[–] "Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager" by Buzz Bissinger.
[–] "Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York" by Kenneth Ackerman.
[–] "They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967" by David Maraniss.
[–] "Flashman" (a novel) by George MacDonald Fraser.
[–] "Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and A World on the Brink" by David Margolick.
[–] "Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics and the Battle for the Soul of a City" by Jonathan Mahler.