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Capone: The Man and the Era
In this brilliant history of Prohibition and its most notorious gangster, acclaimed biographer Laurence Bergreen takes us to the gritty streets of Chicago where Al Capone forged his sinister empire.
Bergreen shows the seedy and glamorous sides of the age, the rise of Prohibition, the illicit liquor trade, the battlefield that was Chicago. Delving beyond the Capone mythology. Bergreen finds a a coldblooded killer, thief, pimp, and racketeer who was also a devoted son and father; a self-styled Robin Hood who rose to the top of organized crime. Capone is a masterful portrait of an extraordinary time and of the one man who reigned supreme over it all, Al Capone.
Bergreen shows the seedy and glamorous sides of the age, the rise of Prohibition, the illicit liquor trade, the battlefield that was Chicago. Delving beyond the Capone mythology. Bergreen finds a a coldblooded killer, thief, pimp, and racketeer who was also a devoted son and father; a self-styled Robin Hood who rose to the top of organized crime. Capone is a masterful portrait of an extraordinary time and of the one man who reigned supreme over it all, Al Capone.
704 pages, Paperback
First published August 4, 1994
95 people are currently reading
1310 people want to read
About the author
Laurence Bergreen
19 books322 followersLaurence Bergreen is an award-winning biographer, historian, and chronicler of exploration. His books have been translated into over 20 languages worldwide. In October 2007, Alfred A. Knopf published Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu, a groundbreaking biography of the iconic traveler. Warner Brothers is developing a feature film based on this book starring Matt Damon and written by William Monahan, who won an Oscar for “The Departed.”
His previous work, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, was published to international acclaim by William Morrow/HarperCollins in October 2003. A New York Times “Notable Book” for 2003, it is also in development as a motion picture and is now in its tenth printing.
In addition, Bergreen is the author of Voyage to Mars: NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth, a narrative of NASA’s exploration of Mars, published in November 2000 by Penguin Putnam. Dramatic rights were acquired by TNT.
In 1997, Bantam Doubleday Dell published Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life, a comprehensive biography drawing on unpublished manuscripts and exclusive interviews with Armstrong colleagues and friends. It appeared on many “Best Books of 1997” lists, including those of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Publishers Weekly, and has been published in Germany, Finland, and Great Britain. In 1994, Simon & Schuster published his Capone: The Man and the Era. A Book-of-the-Month Club selection, it has been published in numerous foreign languages, was optioned by Miramax, and was a New York Times “Notable Book.”
His biography, As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, appeared in 1990. This book won the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor award and received front-page reviews in major American and British newspapers and appeared on bestseller lists; it was also a New York Times “Notable Book” for 1990. His previous biography, James Agee: A Life, was also critically acclaimed and was a New York Times “Notable Book” for 1984. His first book was Look Now, Pay Later: The Rise of Network Broadcasting, published by Doubleday in 1980.
He has written for many national publications including Esquire, Newsweek, TV Guide, Details, Prologue, The Chicago Tribune, and Military History Quarterly. He has taught at the New School for Social Research and served as Assistant to the President of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York. In 1995, he served as a judge for the National Book Awards and in 1991 as a judge for the PEN/Albrand Nonfiction Award. A frequent lecturer at major universities and symposiums, he also serves as a Featured Historian for the History Channel.
Mr. Bergreen graduated from Harvard University in 1972. He is a member of PEN American Center, The Explorers Club, the Authors Guild, and the board of the New York Society Library. He lives in New York City and is represented by Suzanne Gluck of the William Morris Agency.
His previous work, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, was published to international acclaim by William Morrow/HarperCollins in October 2003. A New York Times “Notable Book” for 2003, it is also in development as a motion picture and is now in its tenth printing.
In addition, Bergreen is the author of Voyage to Mars: NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth, a narrative of NASA’s exploration of Mars, published in November 2000 by Penguin Putnam. Dramatic rights were acquired by TNT.
In 1997, Bantam Doubleday Dell published Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life, a comprehensive biography drawing on unpublished manuscripts and exclusive interviews with Armstrong colleagues and friends. It appeared on many “Best Books of 1997” lists, including those of the San Francisco Chronicle, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Publishers Weekly, and has been published in Germany, Finland, and Great Britain. In 1994, Simon & Schuster published his Capone: The Man and the Era. A Book-of-the-Month Club selection, it has been published in numerous foreign languages, was optioned by Miramax, and was a New York Times “Notable Book.”
His biography, As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, appeared in 1990. This book won the Ralph J. Gleason Music Book Award and the ASCAP-Deems Taylor award and received front-page reviews in major American and British newspapers and appeared on bestseller lists; it was also a New York Times “Notable Book” for 1990. His previous biography, James Agee: A Life, was also critically acclaimed and was a New York Times “Notable Book” for 1984. His first book was Look Now, Pay Later: The Rise of Network Broadcasting, published by Doubleday in 1980.
He has written for many national publications including Esquire, Newsweek, TV Guide, Details, Prologue, The Chicago Tribune, and Military History Quarterly. He has taught at the New School for Social Research and served as Assistant to the President of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York. In 1995, he served as a judge for the National Book Awards and in 1991 as a judge for the PEN/Albrand Nonfiction Award. A frequent lecturer at major universities and symposiums, he also serves as a Featured Historian for the History Channel.
Mr. Bergreen graduated from Harvard University in 1972. He is a member of PEN American Center, The Explorers Club, the Authors Guild, and the board of the New York Society Library. He lives in New York City and is represented by Suzanne Gluck of the William Morris Agency.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
January 27, 2010
Currently the favorite book on Capone. There is not much added from the earlier books by Kobler and others. He really adds some incidental information about jazz, politics, and Chicago.
January 9, 2015
A big influence on my own book about the Capone family.
July 1, 2012
I have lived in Chicagoland all my life and yet there is so much about our still most emblematic citizen (sorry, Michael Jordan; sorry, Oprah) that I didn't know. For example, his nickname was "Snorky." He was colorful and imaginative and charming. And scary-smart. (I kept thinking of that old saw, "if only he had used his powers for good.") A good son and a loving father. And we must not forget to add, he was a very, very bad man.
The book is not only about Capone but also about Chicagoland in the 1920s and 1930s. I had no idea how virulent and pervasive the anti-Italian/anti-immigrant sentiment was. Or how freaking corrupt everyone was -- from the cops to the judges to the phone company to the newspaper men to the Church officials who allowed the Capone gang to be buried in consecrated ground.
The book is very long and very detailed and it took me FOREVER to plow through it. But it was never boring. For while many adjectives can be applied to Scarface, "boring" is not one of them.
Toward the beginning of the book I discovered a new hero -- Robert St. John. As a young man in the 1920s, he was a crusading journalist who tried to expose Capone for the thug he undoubtedly was. The Capone gang did everything they could in their power to break this kid -- including beating him and trying to bribe him. He did eventually throw in the towel and escape Chicago, but they never corrupted him. He went on to cover the German bombings of London. Thanks to the author for shining a light on this extraordinarily dedicated and talented man. (Who was more like we imagine Eliot Ness to be than the real Ness was, it seems.)
The book is not only about Capone but also about Chicagoland in the 1920s and 1930s. I had no idea how virulent and pervasive the anti-Italian/anti-immigrant sentiment was. Or how freaking corrupt everyone was -- from the cops to the judges to the phone company to the newspaper men to the Church officials who allowed the Capone gang to be buried in consecrated ground.
The book is very long and very detailed and it took me FOREVER to plow through it. But it was never boring. For while many adjectives can be applied to Scarface, "boring" is not one of them.
Toward the beginning of the book I discovered a new hero -- Robert St. John. As a young man in the 1920s, he was a crusading journalist who tried to expose Capone for the thug he undoubtedly was. The Capone gang did everything they could in their power to break this kid -- including beating him and trying to bribe him. He did eventually throw in the towel and escape Chicago, but they never corrupted him. He went on to cover the German bombings of London. Thanks to the author for shining a light on this extraordinarily dedicated and talented man. (Who was more like we imagine Eliot Ness to be than the real Ness was, it seems.)
March 3, 2010
• Man, this book took me a long time to read. That was my first reaction after finishing it, but then I thought about the book itself. I have to say that I’m really happy I took the time to read the whole thing. Capone has been so idolized, lionized, crucified, or canonized by so many different people it’s really difficult to have any idea who the real Capone is. I believe that if any book or other type of media is going to get it right, it’s this book. Everyone says, “Well, what if the info in this book is untrue?” I guess that’s possible, but the info that’s listed as fact in this book is only done so if it is backed up by obtainable records in various agencies that keep them. Also, the things listed as opinion or ‘eye-witness’ accounts are listed as such. They are not portrayed as fact. Overall, this book was a great experience and a fascinating window into the life and times of arguably the most famous man of his era.
April 12, 2014
Always had a soft spot in my heart for Al Capone. My grandmother worked for him (at his resort in northern Wisconsin) and described how he took care of her and her sister when times were tough. He paid for my great aunt's medical bills and wouldn't think of being repaid.
March 6, 2017
Laurence Bergreen's expansive, detailed, and well-researched study of Al Capone balances the many elements of the man: ruthless gangster deemed Public Enemy Number 1 who coldly ordered the death of enemies, fabled "Robin Hood" who gave lavish tips to young caddies, and aspiring businessman who proudly rubbed elbows with Chicago's elite during Prohibition. Here was a man who believed he deserved praise for opening soup kitchens and handing out diamond belt buckles to his friends...despite the fact that he was able to finance this "generosity" by killing or intimidating anyone who got in his way.
Bergreen makes good use of Capone's older brother Vincenzo, who has once abandoned the family to become celebrated Prohibition agent Richard "Two-Gun" Hart before again accepting his family in middle age, returning as the "prodigal son" after younger brother Al was released from prison. "For him, the law was the law, and he liked enforcing it," notes Bergreen in the last chapter. Arguably the most violent Capone, Hart's story as a feared lawman is one of the many "stranger than fiction" elements of the Al Capone saga.
Bergreen also explores the effects of Capone's syphilis, contracted early in life and exacerbated in its tertiary stage by the conditions of his eventual prison sentence in the '30s. It is this final portion that surprisingly proves the most interesting; his gangland tales of the '20s read well but are better documented and detailed elsewhere. Here, Bergreen sharply draws the picture of a man tortured by his helplessly eroding mind and self-delusions: "The Capone we remember was the creation of a disease that had magnified his personality. Syphilis made Al Capone larger than life."
One can't help but to see the parallels to Donald Trump, who shares Capone's thin-skinned narcissism and intense penchant for pathologically lying. As one of Capone's cellmates noted: "Guided in other directions, his imagination, drive, and fearlessness might have made him a heroic general, captain of a fleet, or a mighty business mogul. He had a brilliant knack for organization, which, channeled in the proper direction, would have made him a success in any business operation." These might have been inspiring, or at least thought-provoking, words for me a few years ago but after seeing what the similarly narcissistic, pathological, and thin-skinned Trump has done "in the proper direction," it takes a lot more than business acumen to be a great person.
In fact, hubris is proven to be the hamartia on all sides of the law with reckless self-promoters like Al Capone, Jake Lingle, and Eliot Ness all falling from grace without the fairy-tale ending that they hoped their brash, bullet-riddled headlines would get them. It was the quiet, shrewd ones - focused g-men like George E.Q. Johnson and Frank Wilson or even low-key criminals like Ralph Capone, Alvin Karpis, and Johnny Torrio - Bergreen accurately presents as the wiser and more capable people in their respective professions.
All in all, a great study that, for better or worse, humanizes a man often reduced to a caricature of the era, summarized as Bergreen recounts Capone's ignominious death in 1947 as "the best-known, least-understood gangster of all." Thanks to Bergreen, we have greater understanding why Al Capone existed - both the internal drive and the external forces that allowed him to become who he was.
Bergreen makes good use of Capone's older brother Vincenzo, who has once abandoned the family to become celebrated Prohibition agent Richard "Two-Gun" Hart before again accepting his family in middle age, returning as the "prodigal son" after younger brother Al was released from prison. "For him, the law was the law, and he liked enforcing it," notes Bergreen in the last chapter. Arguably the most violent Capone, Hart's story as a feared lawman is one of the many "stranger than fiction" elements of the Al Capone saga.
Bergreen also explores the effects of Capone's syphilis, contracted early in life and exacerbated in its tertiary stage by the conditions of his eventual prison sentence in the '30s. It is this final portion that surprisingly proves the most interesting; his gangland tales of the '20s read well but are better documented and detailed elsewhere. Here, Bergreen sharply draws the picture of a man tortured by his helplessly eroding mind and self-delusions: "The Capone we remember was the creation of a disease that had magnified his personality. Syphilis made Al Capone larger than life."
One can't help but to see the parallels to Donald Trump, who shares Capone's thin-skinned narcissism and intense penchant for pathologically lying. As one of Capone's cellmates noted: "Guided in other directions, his imagination, drive, and fearlessness might have made him a heroic general, captain of a fleet, or a mighty business mogul. He had a brilliant knack for organization, which, channeled in the proper direction, would have made him a success in any business operation." These might have been inspiring, or at least thought-provoking, words for me a few years ago but after seeing what the similarly narcissistic, pathological, and thin-skinned Trump has done "in the proper direction," it takes a lot more than business acumen to be a great person.
In fact, hubris is proven to be the hamartia on all sides of the law with reckless self-promoters like Al Capone, Jake Lingle, and Eliot Ness all falling from grace without the fairy-tale ending that they hoped their brash, bullet-riddled headlines would get them. It was the quiet, shrewd ones - focused g-men like George E.Q. Johnson and Frank Wilson or even low-key criminals like Ralph Capone, Alvin Karpis, and Johnny Torrio - Bergreen accurately presents as the wiser and more capable people in their respective professions.
All in all, a great study that, for better or worse, humanizes a man often reduced to a caricature of the era, summarized as Bergreen recounts Capone's ignominious death in 1947 as "the best-known, least-understood gangster of all." Thanks to Bergreen, we have greater understanding why Al Capone existed - both the internal drive and the external forces that allowed him to become who he was.
November 21, 2024
Al Capone. Scarface. The man in a fedora who ran Chicago like a god in the 1920s. “Al Capone: the Man and the Era” has got to be one of the most complete biographies about Capone available. It is very good. It was also a longer-than-expected read…over 600 pages. Here are some points that interested me:
- Capone did a lot of cocaine like a lot of people in the flapper era. He had nose damage.
- Capone became more unpredictable later in life and his mental health suffered greatly because of syphilis. Apparently he got it as a very young man and the way it works is that it lies dormant for decades and then effects your brain.
- There are many great anecdotes and quotes throughout the book! “Show me a man who doesn’t have a racket”, how Capone and his cronies would play leapfrog while playing golf, etc.
- Capone’s brother lived in the Midwest as a famous Prohibition policeman and kept his identity secret.
- Capone was beloved by people around him. He was capable of huge generosity and gave out money constantly. Was he a good guy? I would not go that far, but he was certainly more complex than a caricature of a mobster.
- Elliott Ness, the famous “Untouchables” crime fighter, tried to take more credit than he deserved about getting Capone. Ironically he ended up as a horrible alcoholic later in life.
- Possibly the best part of the book was when Capone went to prison. He went to different places, but the most famous was when he went to the Alcatraz. It was extremely strict and a brutal place.
- The tax evasion trial stuff (how they got Capone in legal trouble) was a bit long but it was interesting to read what exactly happened.
- Capone did a lot of cocaine like a lot of people in the flapper era. He had nose damage.
- Capone became more unpredictable later in life and his mental health suffered greatly because of syphilis. Apparently he got it as a very young man and the way it works is that it lies dormant for decades and then effects your brain.
- There are many great anecdotes and quotes throughout the book! “Show me a man who doesn’t have a racket”, how Capone and his cronies would play leapfrog while playing golf, etc.
- Capone’s brother lived in the Midwest as a famous Prohibition policeman and kept his identity secret.
- Capone was beloved by people around him. He was capable of huge generosity and gave out money constantly. Was he a good guy? I would not go that far, but he was certainly more complex than a caricature of a mobster.
- Elliott Ness, the famous “Untouchables” crime fighter, tried to take more credit than he deserved about getting Capone. Ironically he ended up as a horrible alcoholic later in life.
- Possibly the best part of the book was when Capone went to prison. He went to different places, but the most famous was when he went to the Alcatraz. It was extremely strict and a brutal place.
- The tax evasion trial stuff (how they got Capone in legal trouble) was a bit long but it was interesting to read what exactly happened.
May 16, 2021
2.75 stars. A decent-ish read, filled with some interesting information, but absolutely bogged down with way too much data. I'm sure there are some people who wanted to know the minutiae of every single person who ever met Capone, but it made for an unreadable book at times. Easily half of the book could have been cut and it still would have contained everything that happened in Capone's life. I almost wish there were two versions, one reference version filled with extraneous detail for people who need to do research, and one true biography version filled only with pertinent information relating to Capone. I would have really preferred the latter.
April 11, 2021
This 600+ page book was an amazing read! Not only does it cover the history, in detail, about Alphonse Capone but also covers the history of his family, and the history of the United States during prohibition, the Great Depression, and the rise of la mala vida. An enjoyable book, thorough research, and non-biased.
April 23, 2025
This book was VERY LONG. But good too. Learned a lot which is always fun.
July 16, 2008
This is one of my favourite books, not just within it's own topic but of all my books. At the moment, it's tucked away in a box in my loft but I think a re-read is about due.
For someone highly interested in the subject but also wanting a juicy read rather than dry facts - as I am - this hits the spot.
This is a hefty book, 3 inches deep, thin pages, small typeface. Start in the autumn and hibernate with it all winter.
For someone highly interested in the subject but also wanting a juicy read rather than dry facts - as I am - this hits the spot.
This is a hefty book, 3 inches deep, thin pages, small typeface. Start in the autumn and hibernate with it all winter.
November 8, 2020
Very detailed account of the man and the criminal empire he built. It also covers in detail the lives of his immediate family, including a brother who worked in law enforcement under an assumed name. I never wanted to put it down. Really give you insight into the era.
Fair warning: The constant descriptions of the distribution and consumption of alcohol might make you want to have a drink yourself as you read it.
Fair warning: The constant descriptions of the distribution and consumption of alcohol might make you want to have a drink yourself as you read it.
October 23, 2020
Very well balanced review, written in a very approachable style. Extremely well researched and covers Capone's life, but equally interesting is the picture it paints of the time, especially prohibition Chicago. It's important it is well written, as it runs to around 700 pages.
June 26, 2012
Wow! A well research book on Al Capone? This is it and it's told in a totally readable book by Laurence Bergreen, who wrote another book about Marco Polo on my list. I could almost smell the Chicago of the 20's reading this book. Al Capone was a very complicated man to say the least.
June 10, 2009
I found this book in a discarded pile while I was working as an intern at Simon and Shuster. It's one of the best, most colorful, and well-balanced biographies I ever read.
July 21, 2012
Long, but a very interesting read with details not just about Capone's life but about the world he lived in too. Great book!
February 2, 2014
Contains a great deal of information without being tedious.
October 9, 2024
Popular biographer Laurence Bergreen gives us a comprehensive biography of, probably still, the most famous gangster of all time, Al Capone. Capone was the head of the Chicago Outfit during the height of Prohibition from 1925, when he took over from Johnny Torrio (following the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Torrio), until his sentencing on income tax evasion in 1931. Capone was what everyone thought of as a prohibition era racketeer. Flamboyant. Dressed to the nines. Surrounded by molls and bodyguards. Ordering hits to take out rivals. Bribing politicians. And a lot of that was true. But it was also only part of the story.
Bergreen gives us Capone's entire life. From his boyhood in Brooklyn where he first started working for Torrio and Frankie Yale. To his brief time in Philadelphia as an bookkeeper. To Chicago, again working for Torrio, as a brothel manager and, ultimately, as an organizer. If it was Torrio who started the trend to turn racketeering into an organized operation, it was Capone who finished the job. I don't think there can be any doubt that Torrio and Capone's methods for organizing Chicago were an inspiration for the way the Commission ultimately organized crime across the U.S. And, from his "thrones" in Cicero and Chicago Heights, there was very little doubt that for a few years Capone was the most powerful man in Chicago...possibly in the Midwest. He controlled mayors, legislators, judges, Senators. The police were almost universally on his or some other racketeer's payroll (usually more than one).
And why? Because of Prohibition. Gambling had generally been kept to the margins. Prostitution had definitely been kept to the margins. But with Prohibition, you had a law that was utterly unenforceable...because very few people actually wanted it to be enforced. Without Prohibition, organized crime likely doesn't become organized and remains on the margins instead of, ultimately, becoming bigger than U.S. Steel.
So, yeah, Capone was a racketeer. But he was also very much a family man. He was a big tipper and he gave tons of money to marginalized individuals. He also was given to puffing what he did. Some of that was natural bluster. Some was the result of the progress of the neurosyphilis that ultimately killed him. He was a great organizer. Had he wanted to go (or been able to; anti-Italian discrimination was a very real thing) "legit" he could have been a very successful businessman. He was pretty brilliant as both insulating himself from the deeds carried out in his name and in disguising how he came about his wealth. The case the IRS built against him was certainly valid, but the conviction was questionable, and I say that as a criminal attorney of 25 years experience. Capone's attorneys absolutely botched that case. And the Judge was absolutely biased against Capone, made a lot of very questionable rulings and 100% committed judicial misconduct on more than a few occasions during the trial.
This is a very good book. Super interesting and well written like the other two books by Bergreen I've read (his biographies of Louis Armstrong and Magellan). But it's not without faults. Bergreen, on a number of occasions, asserts as fact the identities of individuals involved in famous gangland killings when those identities are not known to a certainty. In particular, he does that with the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Is he probably right...yeah, he probably is. But he should maybe hedge his bets just a bit. And he's firmly convinced that the real head of the Outfit...the power behind the scenes was an obscure mafiosi named Frankie LaPorte. He doesn't, however, give us any evidence of this at all. Is he right? Is he wrong? I don't know. LaPorte is a fairly mysterious figure. He was definitely involved with The Outfit and was absolutely a bigwig in the "Sin Strip" area of Calumet City. But Bergreen gives us nothing to bolster his assertion that Capone bowed to LaPorte.
This is a big book about a big man who was, for a few years, one of the biggest men in the country. Capone's legacy, even if that legacy isn't wholly accurate, still permeates our popular culture. So it is well worth the commitment to give this one a read, even with some fairly clear issues.
Bergreen gives us Capone's entire life. From his boyhood in Brooklyn where he first started working for Torrio and Frankie Yale. To his brief time in Philadelphia as an bookkeeper. To Chicago, again working for Torrio, as a brothel manager and, ultimately, as an organizer. If it was Torrio who started the trend to turn racketeering into an organized operation, it was Capone who finished the job. I don't think there can be any doubt that Torrio and Capone's methods for organizing Chicago were an inspiration for the way the Commission ultimately organized crime across the U.S. And, from his "thrones" in Cicero and Chicago Heights, there was very little doubt that for a few years Capone was the most powerful man in Chicago...possibly in the Midwest. He controlled mayors, legislators, judges, Senators. The police were almost universally on his or some other racketeer's payroll (usually more than one).
And why? Because of Prohibition. Gambling had generally been kept to the margins. Prostitution had definitely been kept to the margins. But with Prohibition, you had a law that was utterly unenforceable...because very few people actually wanted it to be enforced. Without Prohibition, organized crime likely doesn't become organized and remains on the margins instead of, ultimately, becoming bigger than U.S. Steel.
So, yeah, Capone was a racketeer. But he was also very much a family man. He was a big tipper and he gave tons of money to marginalized individuals. He also was given to puffing what he did. Some of that was natural bluster. Some was the result of the progress of the neurosyphilis that ultimately killed him. He was a great organizer. Had he wanted to go (or been able to; anti-Italian discrimination was a very real thing) "legit" he could have been a very successful businessman. He was pretty brilliant as both insulating himself from the deeds carried out in his name and in disguising how he came about his wealth. The case the IRS built against him was certainly valid, but the conviction was questionable, and I say that as a criminal attorney of 25 years experience. Capone's attorneys absolutely botched that case. And the Judge was absolutely biased against Capone, made a lot of very questionable rulings and 100% committed judicial misconduct on more than a few occasions during the trial.
This is a very good book. Super interesting and well written like the other two books by Bergreen I've read (his biographies of Louis Armstrong and Magellan). But it's not without faults. Bergreen, on a number of occasions, asserts as fact the identities of individuals involved in famous gangland killings when those identities are not known to a certainty. In particular, he does that with the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Is he probably right...yeah, he probably is. But he should maybe hedge his bets just a bit. And he's firmly convinced that the real head of the Outfit...the power behind the scenes was an obscure mafiosi named Frankie LaPorte. He doesn't, however, give us any evidence of this at all. Is he right? Is he wrong? I don't know. LaPorte is a fairly mysterious figure. He was definitely involved with The Outfit and was absolutely a bigwig in the "Sin Strip" area of Calumet City. But Bergreen gives us nothing to bolster his assertion that Capone bowed to LaPorte.
This is a big book about a big man who was, for a few years, one of the biggest men in the country. Capone's legacy, even if that legacy isn't wholly accurate, still permeates our popular culture. So it is well worth the commitment to give this one a read, even with some fairly clear issues.
May 12, 2019
I picked up this book because I was hopeful it was another work like Mr. Bergreen's fine book on Magellan. "Capone" was a thorough and well-written book, and then some. Magellan could have taken two laps around the globe by the time I got to the end of this tome. But after a while, I refused to say "uncle" and pushed on to the end. Everything you'd ever want to know about Al Capone, from his jail-cell conversations to the color of his underwear is somewhere in the 619 pages of this book. I think a good editor could have pared 100 pages and still left the author's intent and voice intact. But it's a very good piece of writing as it is.
September 29, 2017
I think that Bergreen does a fine job of following through on his thesis that Al Capone was Public Enemy Number One chiefly because of media hype and racism, though for a book in which the main character is a sex- and beer-pushing mobster, it is mighty dull in some stretches. I came away from this bio with my estimation of the protagonist diminished, that Capone was a fringe character in a fringe city.
January 28, 2025
super wordy and can be really repetitive at points BUT does an amazing job of capturing capone as he really was (iow: debunking the myths regarding him). bergreen also does a gr8 job of pushing the narrative beyond capone so you really get a well rounded picture of the times and the man as the title suggests🫡
March 31, 2025
This is a great book on the life and times of Al Capone. The author does a great job of balancing the good with the bad in this man's life. There are a few errors in the book that are annoying, but you really get a good sense of what life was like in Chicago in the 1920's as well as a very detailed story of Capone's life. It was fascinating to read.
December 15, 2016
This was an interesting book about a fascinating person. I could've done with much less detail, however, about the many, many others in Chicago, New York, and everywhere that Capone dealt with throughout his life.
March 12, 2022
This is a well written book. There are things about Al Capone that I didn't know about. I love this author and am reading other books of his too. The neat thing for me. Is the different Towns and streets he mentions in the book. I know exactly where he is talking about.
April 16, 2023
This is a beast of a book. Very well written, but I gave it 4 stars because it’s just so dang long. I started this book because I have read two of the author’s other biographies that are incredibly good and insightful.
September 29, 2024
An excellent biography--one of the best I have read. The author leans a bit toward Capone being a likeable guy but all in all he writes with good neutrality between portraying him as a monster versus larger than life, charismatic good guy.
January 1, 2017
A good biography which tells the rise and fall of Al Capone and how the agents who tracked him managed to bring about his incarceration.
December 19, 2020
This book provides so many detail surrounding Al Capone it can be slightly overwhelming! It’s really a great book that you can tell Bergreen spent a lot of time researching.
August 8, 2022
Excellent book on prohibition and Capone, found it fascinating
January 27, 2023
American made
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