Author(s): Massimo Picozzi

Biography/Memoir

This is the story of the Cosa Nostra: from its origins in Sicily in 1863, to Italian immigration to America, prohibition and the formation of the first mafia families, and to fascism and post-war Italy. The image of the mafioso as a "man of honour" - good to the weak, above the laws of the state but subject to a precise code - was rooted in the collective imagination until the 1980s when light was shed on the structure of the vast organisation, its unsavoury objectives and the cold-blooded strategies behind its actions. Culled from thousands of archival images, photographs and detailed captions tell the story of the criminals who have entered popular legend but also of the people who have been victims of the mafia: the judges, police officers and private citizens who fought back.