Retrace l'évolution de la mafia, née en Sicile au XIXe siècle, jusqu'aux cartels internationaux qui règlent les trafics illégaux de drogues et d'armes aujourd'hui. ©Electre 2025

Romanticized images of cigar-toting dons and shootouts in pizzerias epitomize our fascination with the Mafia, but behind the myth of "men of honor" and omertà lies a very real world of murder, racketeering, and organized crime. Marco Gasparini reveals the real face of the Mafia in this illustrated history, which focuses on the highly developed criminal organization both as a cult subject and an important social phenomenon.

From the Mafia's traditional and family-orientated roots in nineteenth-century Sicily, through the streets of twentieth-century New York, and to the international cartels that rule the illegal drug and arms trades today, historic photographs and documents chronicle the secrets of an "octopus" organization that has, until recent years, remained impenetrable. Infamous Mafia bosses including Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, as well as legendary crime fighters such as New York police officer Joe Petrosino and similarly ill-fated Italian Judge Giovanni Falcone, are brought to life through photographs - many previously unpublished - that reveal the multi-faceted reality behind a phenomenon that has sparked popular imagination for decades.

Packed with historical documents and photographs, and penned by an expert in Mafia history, this volume traces the criminal organization from its origins in the Sicilian countryside to its current form as a political and economic power.

From the first glimmers of the Cosa Nostra in the depths of rural Sicily, to the less traditional and more ruthless Mafia of today, this book takes readers inside the Mafia's various branches around the world on a journey of racketeering, extortion, and drugs and arms trafficking.

From the Black Hand gang in New York to Al Capone's Chicago "Outfit" or the "Arm" in Buffalo, New York; and from "Prime Minister of the Underworld" Frank Costello's criminal realm in New Orleans to the prostitution and gambling industry in Las Vegas, we discover the greatest godfathers, underbosses, and "soldiers" as well as the pentiti (or turncoats) and the most formidable wives of Mafiosi.

The Mafia's hierarchical structure, unwritten rules, rituals, and methods have become an international model: as the Neapolitan Camorra continues its equally bloody work and the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta advances menacingly into Europe, the Japanese Yakuza has become the largest organized crime group in the world today, and the Russian and Chinese mafias are ever-growing.

Marco Gasparini also traces some of the most celebrated cinematic achievements that have been inspired by the Mafia phenomenon, from Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy, one of the greatest film sagas ever made, to Gomorrah, based on Roberto Saviano's book of the same name, a shocking portrayal of the very real world of the Neapolitan Camorra.