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Mafia and Antimafia yesterday and today
80 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 30, 2023
I bought this book at the No Mafia Memorial in Palermo, and it was written by the co-founder of the organization that runs it, so I thought it was a good way to support their work and it could also be a really interesting read.
I think my favorite section was learning about the history of organized crime in Italy and how the mafia came to be, since I've never really learned about that before. Santino also challenges some perspectives about the Sicilian Mafia, for example the idea that the Mafia helped the Allies invade Sicily during World War II, which was pretty interesting to hear although I'm not sure about where that comes from. (Unfortunately, although there is a lot of primary source usage, some parts are uncited...)
At certain points, this book turns into simply a narration of assassinations, which does make sense considering it's a publication of the memorial intended to commemorate these people, but I do sometimes wish for more analysis here. Than again, maybe I should just go to a longer work for this. For a very brief volume from a small press, it's a decent read.
I think my favorite section was learning about the history of organized crime in Italy and how the mafia came to be, since I've never really learned about that before. Santino also challenges some perspectives about the Sicilian Mafia, for example the idea that the Mafia helped the Allies invade Sicily during World War II, which was pretty interesting to hear although I'm not sure about where that comes from. (Unfortunately, although there is a lot of primary source usage, some parts are uncited...)
At certain points, this book turns into simply a narration of assassinations, which does make sense considering it's a publication of the memorial intended to commemorate these people, but I do sometimes wish for more analysis here. Than again, maybe I should just go to a longer work for this. For a very brief volume from a small press, it's a decent read.
December 4, 2024
Not a real “book” by any means, just a short reader providing context to the Mafia memorial. Still a good start for a broad overview of the topic
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews