The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America - Softcover

Fried, Albert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0231096836 ISBN 13: 9780231096836

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 1994

Synopsis

This book tracks the rise and fall of an underworld culture that bred some of America's greatest racketeers, bootleggers, gamblers, and professional killers, examining the careers of such high-profile figures as Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Bugsy Siegel.

About this title

About the Author

Albert Fried teaches American Studies at SUNY Purchase. He is the editor of Socialism in America: From the Shakers to the Third International, and edited with Ronald Sanders a revised edition of Socialist Thought: A Documentary History, both available from Columbia University Press.

From the Back Cover

Albert Fried recalls the rise and fall of an underworld culture that bred some of America's most infamous racketeers, bootleggers, gamblers, and professional killers, spawned by a culture of vice and criminality on New York's Lower East Side and similar environments in Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Detroit, Newark, and Philadelphia. The author adds an important dimension to this story as he discusses the Italian gangs that teamed up with their Jewish counterparts to form multicultural syndicates.

Reviews

Fried, coauthor of Socialist Thought (Classic Returns, LJ 8/93), here "rescues the Jewish gangster from oblivion and traces the development of the Jewish underworld from its origins to its gradual disappearance after Prohibition" (LJ 8/80). This revised edition updates the information on such figures as Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Dutch Shultz.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231096836
• ISBN 13: 9780231096836
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 351