Organized Crime and American Power
A History, Second Edition
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Toronto Press
Published:30th May '24
£33.00
Supplier delay - available to order, but may take longer than usual.
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£73.00(9781487543457)
Popular histories of organized crime in the United States often look to the Mafia and the sons of early twentieth-century immigrants – such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky – for their origins. In this second edition of Organized Crime and American Power, Michael Woodiwiss refocuses on US organized crime as an American problem.
The book starts in 1789, with the birth of a new nation, intended to be run according to laws and conventions, with a written commitment to civil rights. Woodiwiss examines the organization of crime before the Civil War, which damaged or destroyed the lives of those excluded from constitutional protections: Indigenous peoples, Black people, and women. The book focuses on white supremacist crime and the pernicious influence of Southern leaders in alliance with opportunistic politicians. It examines the organized crimes of powerful business interests in alliance with politicians, as well as the corrupt consequences of the US moralistic campaigns against alcohol, gambling, drugs, and abortion.
Organized Crime and American Power brings solid historical evidence and analysis to the task of refuting conventional wisdom that frames organized crime as something external to US political, economic, and social systems.
ISBN: 9781487543464
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 25mm
Weight: 640g
480 pages
2nd edition