the first family: terror, extortion, revenge, murder, and the birth of the american mafia
Buy Cheap The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia 
Buy Low Price From Here Now
Before the notorious Five Families who dominated U.S. organized crime for a bloody half century, there was the one-fingered criminal genius Giuseppe Morelloâknown as âThe Clutch Handââand his lethal coterie of associates. In The First Family, historian, journalist, and New York Times bestselling author Mike Dash brings to life this little-known story, following the rise of the Mafia in America from the 1890s to the 1920s, from the lawless villages of Sicily to the streets of Little Italy. Using an impressive array of primary sourcesâhitherto untapped Secret Service archives, prison records, trial transcripts, and interviews with surviving family membersâthis is the first Mafia history that applies scholarly rigor to the story of the Morello syndicate and the birth of organized crime on these shores.
Progressing from small-time scams to counterfeiting rings to even bigger criminal enterprises, Giuseppe Morello exerted ruthless control of Italian neighborhoods in New York, and through adroit coordination with other Sicilian crime families, his Clutch Hand soon reached far beyond the Hudson River.
The men who battled Morelloâs crews were themselves colorful and legendary figures, including William Flynn, a fearless Secret Service agent, and Lieutenant Detective Giuseppe âJoeâ Petrosino of the New York Police Departmentâs elite Italian Squad, whose pursuit of the brutal gangs ultimately cost him his life.
Combining first-rate scholarship and pulse-quickening action, and set amid rustic Sicilian landscapes and the streets of old New York, The First Family is a groundbreaking account of the crucial period when the American criminal underworld exploded with violent fury across the nation……..
Readmore
Technical Details
– ISBN13: 9781400067220
– Condition: NEW
– Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
– Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
See more technical details 
2009-12-16
By Dustin F
One major aspect of this book is how it bleeds with research. It’s clear tons of effort went into getting the details and stories correct. This book is the result of painstaking investigations and painstaking research, and that makes for a lot of gruesome accounts of crimes.
The other major aspect of this book is that it was written beautifully. Yes… beautifully. For the topic, that’s hard to believe, but this book is as enjoyable to read as a thrilling novel. You want to know what happened next in this almost inspiring rags to … ashes account.
What’s the book really about? A man comes to our society, like many, wanting to make something by working hard. He pioneers a system of crimes that is lucrative and relatively stable. A basic plan that is used to great affect after it kills the first faction… leading to the ultimate conclusion about the fascinating mafia.
If you or someone you love is interested in crime or the mafia, this book deserves my unqualified recommendation. However, it’s painstaking detail about a horrible thing. That is not for everyone. This, to me, is American History (I love the country… not a ding on her whatsoever, but this is part of the history!)
2009-11-29
By Jeremy Williamson (Brooklyn, NY)
The First Family is nothing short of excellent and superior historical true crime writing. Mike Dash has set the bar extremely high with The First Family, which reads like a historical novel but is in actuality more akin to an extraordinarily well researched academic tome complete with multiple pages of notes in reference to works cited, and a full bibliography in regard to the vast source material. All said, amazing content, when authored by a true craftsman, makes for an awesome read! Hopefully Mike Dash will continue to apply his obviously formidable talents to the American Mafia, both historical and contemporary. Here’s to you Mr. Dash! A well deserved full 5 stars!
2009-10-25
By Rose Keefe (Canada)
The Mafia is one of those organizations that Hollywood and the media have turned into a household name. Its current public face is the fictional Tony Soprano. The closing years of the nineteenth century and the dawning of the twentieth were the halcyon days of Giuseppe Morello, who was known to cop and criminal alike as `the Clutch Hand’ because of a deformed arm. The nickname could just as well have derived from his talent for seizing any opportunity to make crime pay.
Mike Dash has written an engrossing account of Morello’s ascendancy from the dusty streets of his native Corleone, Sicily to the saloons and tenements of New York, where he became the much-feared boss of the Italian-dominated rackets. He counterfeited American and Canadian currency, masterminded insurance scams, and unleashed Black Hand terror on his frightened countrymen, all the while building and strengthening a gang that became the first organized crime family. Morello’s vicious rule encompassed some of the most sensational examples of mob violence in the city’s history, such as the Barrel Murder of 1903 and the Masseria-Maranzano war of Sicilian succession. The ageing Clutch Hand served as advisor to Joe `the Boss’ Masseria in the latter conflict, and was killed by Maranzano gunmen in August 1930.
As with his previous books, Dash focuses on primary sources, such as the records of the U.S. Secret Service (which tracked Morello during his counterfeiting days) and the memoirs of its New York bureau chief, William Flynn, who pursued the Clutch Hand’s gang as doggedly as another legendary mob-buster, NYPD Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino (whose war with the Mafia and brutal murder are both covered in detail). Chilling anecdotes mingle with archival evidence to tell a story that rivals the best crime fiction.
“The First Family” is one of the finest accounts of the Mafia’s shady and bloody beginnings. Those who enjoyed this book are advised to also read Thomas Hunt and Martha Machecha Sheldon’s “Deep Water”, which is a similarly authoritative and original treatment of the 1890 assassination of New Orleans police chief David Hennessy, which was America’s first widely publicized Mafia hit.
2009-10-25
By Michael Buck (wisconsin, usa)
I didn’t know what to expect when i purchased this book in august. I had, of course heard of Clutch Hand Morello, and some others in this book like Ciro Terranova and Ignazio Lupo before but never had read about them in any in depth tomes before. They were more or less mentioned in passing in such books as A Man of Honor by Joe Bonanno or The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas. These stories had references only to Morello in respect of his role in the Castellamarese War as the right hand man of Joe The Boss Masseria. I had no idea of the pivotal and exceptionally violent role Morello played in the founding and expansion of the New York mafia. This story is wonderfully told, in intricate detail, well honed like the knife that slit Benedetto Madonia’s throat in the opening pages. It is brilliantly eloquently written. To use the primary sources of the day was doubtless a daunting task for Mr. Dash, a task he took on with great relish and scored a stunning triumph, a tour de force of this little known era. The murders committed in this book seem to come one after another after another, from New York and Pennsylvania to Sicily. The subjects of this book, though shrouded in the murk of mystery, and obscured by a century of time past nevertheless come out as fascinating characters, ruthless, brutal, enterprising, and although their methods of moneymaking seem primitive by today’s standards of mafia power, their tentacles of influence and control quite stunted in comparison to the later mob, nevertheless they are the true genesis of the American dream for Cosa Nostra. Every gang, just like every government and army have to have a tenuous start sometime and this was the tenuous though inexorable rise of the American Mafia. It is contained brilliantly in these pages, untold in such fashion before. It is a story that needs to be known by mafia and crime buffs as well as students of American and Italian history. Mike Dash has done a phenomenal job in bringing to light a dark and hithero almost unknown subject. This book is as excellently written a book on the Mafia as i have seen. More books about this subject should be written to the high standards of quality that The First Family has achieved. It is a tremendous work and i cannot recommend it highly enough. Absolutely fantastic.
2009-10-20
By J. M. Jacobs (East Helena, MT, USA)
I found this one to be a sleeper when I first started reading it. Early on there’s a section where all the key individuals are listed and their activities and outcomes are enumerated. (Think: the BEGAT section of the Bible – yes, that exciting)
I almost set this one aside as I went through that territory, but I’m glad I didn’t give up at that point. What follows is a history narrative of the Mafia in America and partly of its roots in Italy.
You can understand how a group like the Mafia would have started in early 20th century America. You’re in a strange land with strange customs, but your people tend to group and live together in particular areas of New York and the eastern seaboard primarily. Chicago, New Orleans and, later on, Las Vegas and even other cities come later. “Strength in numbers” is the operative mode for the early Mafia and that’s how they got started.
Originally it’s pure extortion, simple as that. If you don’t pay, bad things can happen to you. This is followed by counterfeiting where you use the “Family” as your primary distribution channel for the ‘funny money’ you’re printing. Along comes the Roaring 20’s and Prohibition and booze becomes the coin of the realm Mafiawise.
Lastly, drugs and weapons become the hot commodities. Each time, the financial reward ante is upped slightly and more people who get in the way meet their Maker or simply disappear. By ‘disappear’, I mean DEAD, not GONE. “Dead men make lousy witnesses,” eh?
This book does a great job of charting the lineage of the Family in America. After reading it, I have a much clearer idea of the makeup of the Mafia and what its influence has been and is yet today in our country. They were a much more far reaching enterprise than I first thought.
At the end, I was left with a deep longing… to watch The Godfather-Parts I and II again and pay close attention to the Family Business end of both movies. Thanks to this book, I’m quite sure I’ll get something new out of two of my favorite films.
Images Product
Buy The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia Now
Best Book 2009 
Leave a comment