Borgata: Rise of Empire

The American mafia has long held powerful sway over our collective cultural imagination. But how many of us truly understand how a clandestine Sicilian criminal organisation came to exert its influence over nearly every level of American society? In BORGATA: RISE OF EMPIRE, former mafia member Louis Ferrante pulls back the curtain on the criminal organisation that transformed America. From the potent political cauldron of nineteenth-century Sicily to American cities such as New Orleans, New York and the gangster`s paradise of Las Vegas, Ferrante traces the social, economic and political forces that powered the mafia`s unstoppable rise. We follow the early mob as they provide alcohol to the American public during prohibition, aid U. S. Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, establish a gambling mecca in the Nevada desert - and unofficially take control of the island of Cuba. Ferrante`s vivid portrayal of early American mobsters - among them Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky - fills in crucial gaps of mafia history to deliver the most comprehensive account yet of the world`s most famous criminal fraternity. This volume is the first in a groundbreaking new trilogy from a man who has seen it all from the inside. Ferrante`s masterful account journeys from the group`s inauspicious beginnings to the height of their power as the most influential organised criminal network in America.