History of the Mafia
History of the Mafia
SALVATORE LUPO
TRANSLATED BY ANTONY SHUGAAR
Copyright Date: 2009
Published by: Columbia University Press
Pages: 352
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/lupo13134
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Book Info
History of the Mafia
Book Description:

When we think of the Italian Mafia, we think of Marlon Brando, Tony Soprano, and the Corleones-iconic actors and characters who give shady dealings a mythical pop presence. Yet these sensational depictions take us only so far. The true story of the Mafia reveals both an organization and mindset dedicated to the preservation of tradition. It is no accident that the rise of the Mafia coincided with the unification of Italy and the influx of immigrants into America. The Mafia means more than a horse head under the sheets-it functions as an alternative to the state, providing its own social and political justice.

Combining a nuanced history with a unique counternarrative concerning stereotypes of the immigrant, Salvatore Lupo, a leading historian of modern Italy and a major authority on its criminal history, has written the definitive account of the Sicilian Mafia from 1860 to the present. Consulting rare archival sources, he traces the web of associations, both illicit and legitimate, that have defined Cosa Nostra during its various incarnations. He focuses on several crucial periods of transition: the Italian unification of 1860 to 1861, the murder of noted politician Notarbartolo, fascist repression of the Mafia, the Allied invasion of 1943, social conflicts after each world war, and the major murders and trials of the 1980s.

Lupo identifies the internal cultural codes that define the Mafia and places these codes within the context of social groups and communities. He also challenges the belief that the Mafia has grown more ruthless in recent decades. Rather than representing a shift from "honorable" crime to immoral drug trafficking and violence, Lupo argues the terroristic activities of the modern Mafia signify a new desire for visibility and a distinct break from the state. Where these pursuits will take the family adds a fascinating coda to Lupo's work.

eISBN: 978-0-231-50539-0
Subjects: History, Sociology
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  1. Front Matter
    Front Matter (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    Table of Contents (pp. v-vi)
  3. FOREWORD
    FOREWORD (pp. vii-xiv)
    ANTONY SHUGAAR

    In the late 1980s, when I was covering Italy’s booming media business, a Milan advertising executive provided me with a subtle insight into the raucous debate then under way over the Italian government’s efforts to maintain its television monopoly.

    It’s like a man walking his dog through a dangerous part of town, he explained. The man actually wants the dog to look completely uncontrollable so that potential muggers will steer clear.

    So, even as Italian media tycoons and other aspiring tycoons were struggling to block a proposed government clamp-down, they were loudly proclaiming to anyone who would listen—especially to...

  4. PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
    PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION (pp. xv-xviii)
    Salvatore Lupo
  5. CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
    CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION (pp. 1-30)

    Among the growing mass of printed materials concerning the Mafia, it is rare to find history books.¹ And yet historians need to provide answers to a number of crucial questions and not just questions about the origins of the Mafia, which are too often reduced to a quest for a mythical point of origination, in opposition to a depthless present day. When, how, and why did the array of factors that we can define as the Mafia emerge from the larger complex of Sicilian history? What, in this phenomenon, has changed with variations in the historic context, and what in...

  6. CHAPTER II THE REVELATION
    CHAPTER II THE REVELATION (pp. 31-93)

    It is not particularly meaningful to know where the word “mafia” comes from¹ or whether, and in what context, the word may have been used before 1860. However, it is crucial to note that after that date the term entered into very general use to refer, however vaguely, to a pathological relationship among politics, society, and criminality. Thus, the very moment of Italy’s foundation as a nation and a state coincided with the first, generic, and exceedingly ambiguous perception that a problem of this sort existed. Esse est percipi (“To be is to be perceived”): it is proper to start...

  7. CHAPTER III GUARDIANI AND PROFITEERS
    CHAPTER III GUARDIANI AND PROFITEERS (pp. 94-141)

    On 1 February 1893, in a railroad car traveling along the Termini–Palermo line, Emanuele Notarbartolo di San Giovanni was murdered. Notarbartolo was a scion of one of Sicily’s most respected aristocratic families. Although he had political affiliations with the Destra storica (historic right wing), he was widely viewed as a man who rose above party politics, and he was universally respected for the moral rectitude and administrative skills he had displayed while serving as Palermo’s mayor (1873–1876) and as the general manager of the Banco di Sicilia (Bank of Sicily) (1876–1890).¹

    This was not a case of...

  8. CHAPTER IV DEMOCRATIZATION, TOTALITARIANISM, DEMOCRACY
    CHAPTER IV DEMOCRATIZATION, TOTALITARIANISM, DEMOCRACY (pp. 142-197)

    In 1890, Captain David Hennessy of the local police in New Orleans died in an ambush for which eighteen Sicilians were charged. They were tried and acquitted.¹ Control of the docks and the fruit trade was the classic Mafia-related motive for conflict between two groups, the Provenzanos and the Matrangas, and that conflict constitutes the background of the murder. We are also very familiar with the general outline of the alliance between one of the factions (the Provenzanos) and the police. Apparently, that alliance led to Hennessy’s murder, as a reprisal. The conclusion of the affair, on the other hand,...

  9. CHAPTER V LA COSA LORO—THEIR THING
    CHAPTER V LA COSA LORO—THEIR THING (pp. 198-276)

    If a shapely young woman walks by, a Sicilian will say that she is a ragazza mafiosa (mafiosa girl), and if a young man is alert and intelligent, he will say that the boy is quite mafioso. People talk of the Mafia in every context and condition, but, honorable colleagues, it strikes me that there is a great deal of exaggeration.¹

    The year is 1949. The dismissive and minimalizing interpretation printed above feigns to be based on “field” observations. In fact, it is solidly based on a literary tradition and specifically on the usual Pitrè. The person who put it...

  10. NOTES
    NOTES (pp. 277-314)
  11. INDEX
    INDEX (pp. 315-328)
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