"Reppetto's book earns its place among the best . . . he brings fresh context to a familiar story worth retelling." -The New York Times Book Review Organized crime-the Italian American kind-has long been a source of popular entertainment and legend. Now Thomas Reppetto provides a balanced history of the Mafia's rise-from the 1880s to the post-WWII era-that is as exciting and readable as it is authoritative.Structuring his narrative around a series of case histories featuring such infamous characters as Lucky Luciano and Al Capone, Reppetto draws on a lifetime of field experience and access to unseen documents to show us a locally grown Mafia. It wasn't until the 1920s, thanks to Prohibition, that the Mafia assumed what we now consider its defining characteristics, especially its octopuslike tendency to infiltrate industry and government. At mid-century the Kefauver Commission declared the Mafia synonymous with Union Siciliana; in the 1960s the FBI finally admitted the Mafia's existence under the name La Cosa Nostra.American Mafia is a fascinating look at America's most compelling criminal subculture from an author who is intimately acquainted with both sides of the street.

Introduction: "The Most Secret and Terrible Organization in the World"1. "We Must Teach These People a Lesson": A Murder and Lynching in New Orleans2. A Place in the Sun: Italian Gangs of New York3. Italian Squads and American Carabinieri: Law Enforcement Wars on the Mafia4. Diamond Jim: Overlord of the Underworld5. In the Footsteps of Petrosino: Big Mike6. Prohibition: The Mobs Strike a Bonanza7. The "Get Capone" Drive: Print the Legend8. Lucky: The Rise and Rise of Charlie Luciano9. The Commission: The Mobs Go National10. Racket-Busting: The Dewey Days11. The Feds: Assessing the Menace of the Mafia12. Overreaching: Hollywood and Detroit13. The Prime Minister14. New Worlds to Conquer: Postwar Expansion15. TV's Greatest Hits: Senator Kefauver Presents the MafiaEpilogue: The Decline of the American Mafia