Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia (Hardback) - Louis Ferrante

The first volume in a revolutionary new history of the American Mafia from a man who has seen it all from the inside

The American mafia has long held powerful sway over our collective cultural imagination. But how many of us truly understand how a clandestine Sicilian criminal organisation came to exert its influence over nearly every level of American society?

In BORGATA: RISE OF EMPIRE, former mafia member Louis Ferrante pulls back the curtain on the criminal organisation that transformed America. From the potent political cauldron of nineteenth-century Sicily to American cities such as New Orleans, New York and the gangster's paradise of Las Vegas, Ferrante traces the social, economic and political forces that powered the mafia's unstoppable rise. We follow the early mob as they provide alcohol to the American public during prohibition, aid U. S. Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, establish a gambling mecca in the Nevada desert - and unofficially take control of the island of Cuba.

Ferrante's vivid portrayal of early American mobsters - among them Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky - fills in crucial gaps of mafia history to deliver the most comprehensive account yet of the world's most famous criminal fraternity.

This volume is the first in a groundbreaking new trilogy from a man who has seen it all from the inside. Ferrante's masterful account journeys from the group's inauspicious beginnings to the height of their power as the most influential organised criminal network in America.

About the Author

LOUIS FERRANTE led a professional heist crew within the Gambino crime family and served nearly a decade in America's worst prisons after refusing to inform on his former associates. While in prison, he educated himself and studied law, science and history, ultimately becoming a writer. His last book, Mob Rules, was an international bestseller translated into twenty languages, and his Discovery Channel series, Inside the Gangsters' Code, earned him a Grierson Award nomination for Presenter of the Year.