Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia (Borgata Trilogy)

Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia (Borgata Trilogy)

Louis Ferrante
$29.95
Publication Date: January 2nd, 2024
Publisher:
Pegasus Books
ISBN:
9781639366019
Pages:
400
Charter Books
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Description

A riveting history of the Mafia from 1860s Sicily to 1960s America—as narrated by a former heist expert and Gambino family mobster.

The culmination Louis Ferrante’s exhaustive research delving deep into Sicily’s socio-economic-political roots, Borgata: Rise of Empire will finally reveal exactly how and why this infamous secret society formed inside Sicilian culture. Ferrante then engages in the art of storytelling by carefully selecting stories about the mafia in Sicily that allow him to follow the main characters to America, where most arrive as fugitives from Italian justice.

Across the Atlantic, the storyline picks up in places like New York and New Orleans, where the clannish Sicilians quickly realize the importance of diversity as they forge new alliances with other recently arrived ethnic groups as the borgata becomes the premier organized criminal network in the country. After planting their flags in cities across America, the adolescent American mafia realizes how to corrupt America’s police and political establishment, and they become experts at bribing public officials, allowing them to extend their tentacles into every level of American society.

In this first volume, Ferrante traces the mafia’s phenomenal “rise of empire” through larger-than-life characters such as Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seigel, Albert Anastasia, and other legendary mobsters as they provide alcohol to the American public during Prohibition, penetrate industrial labor unions, practically take over the island of Cuba and, with extraordinary vision, create the gambling mecca of Las Vegas.

About the Author

Louis Ferrante, author of Borgata: Rise of Empire, the first in a definitive three-part history of the American mafia, is a former Mafia associate and heist expert who served eight years in prison after refusing to incriminate his fellow Gambino family members. Mob Rules was an international bestseller and his Discovery Channel Series, Inside the Gangsters Code, earned him a Grierson Award nomination. Louis lives in Florida.

Praise for Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia (Borgata Trilogy)

"Borgata is a detailed work that covers major events in American mafia history. The author produces some highly entertaining insights thanks to his background." 

 
— The Wall Street Journal

"Pacey, detailed, and gripping. Rise of Empire...resembles John Julius Norwich's trilogy on the Byzantine Empire...Ferrante is a Plutarch of the underworld."

 
— Washington Free Beacon, Dominic Green

 "He may be a loss to the criminal fraternity, he is most certainly an asset to the literary world."
— Aspects of History (UK)

“Former mobster Ferrante supplies a fascinating inside look at the history of the Mafia. Ferrante’s familiarity with Mafia customs gives flesh and immediacy to what could otherwise be a rote historical tome, but he doesn’t draw his authority from affiliation alone: this is a well-researched history in its own right. True crime fans will be captivated.” 

 
— Publishers Weekly

“Drawing on his experience as an ex-mobster, Ferrante peppers his stories with enlightening morsels about the conditions that facilitated the rise and impunity of organized criminals.”
— Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Louis Ferrante’s Mob Rules:

"The Mafia Management Guru.” - BusinessWeek

"Leadership lessons from the mob. Ferrante's book is worth the read...colorful tales of mob life.”
— Forbes

“Ferrante shares cogent advice. A colorful and surprisingly practical business primer.” - Publishers Weekly

“One of the wisest and wittiest collections of reflections on life and business ever penned by a wiseguy.”
— Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Ferrante draws on an extensive knowledge of world events, mob lore, and personal experience to deliver an engrossing effort that reads like a rousing memoir, meditation on world history and mafia exposé all in one.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“Pours out spicy tales of Mob lore to make its management points, an approach most execs couldn't refuse. Mob Rules lays out the ways the rules of the Mafia can be applied in pursuit of straight-world success, injecting historical parallels and real-life anecdotes along the way.”
— New York Post

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