by Mike Dash ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 4, 2009
Essential for students of organized crime in America. Murder and mayhem buffs will enjoy it too.
The Mob comes to America, and rivers of blood flow.
The literature surrounding the Mafia is vast, particularly in the glory days of the 1930s and ’40s, but very slight for the first days of the American mob. London-based journalist and historian Dash (Satan’s Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, and New York’s Trial of the Century, 2007, etc.) fills the gap with this altogether excellent account, which begins, as always, in Corleone, Sicily. Giuseppe Morello—variously known as “The Clutch Hand,” “Little Finger” and “One Finger Jack”—earned his chops as a mobster, starting off with penny-ante crimes and swiftly working his way up to the murder of a corrupt cop. Things got hot after that, whereupon Morello made for New York and set up shop doing much the same work, then branching out to take part in whatever mischief was afoot. Dash swiftly reviews the reasons why the Mafia evolved in Sicily, and why it was so exportable, noting that local habits of keeping quiet and resisting state power proved helpful in protecting the newcomers from the authorities—even though the metropolitan police soon organized an “Italian Squad” made up of Italian-American cops such as the little-sung Joe Petrosino, murdered on Morello’s orders, and Michael Fiaschetti. Dash’s narrative soon involves Secret Service agents, politicos and ward bosses, minor hoods and ordinary citizens, building toward Morello’s downfall. Hubris and retribution figure heavily, as do a slew of second-generation mobsters who had designs of their own, independent of the old-timers. Dash writes with flair and care alike, taking pains to keep a complicated story and a vast cast of characters on track while studding the tale with nicely hard-boiled observations, including, “The one trait Joe Masseria fatally lacked was a talent for diplomacy.”
Essential for students of organized crime in America. Murder and mayhem buffs will enjoy it too.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6722-0
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2009
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by Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2018
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
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by Bonnie Tsui ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2020
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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by Bonnie Tsui ; illustrated by Sophie Diao
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