Böcker av Ryan Gingeras

Everybody knows they exist: the Cosa Nostra, the Medellin Cartel, New York's Five Families, China's tongs. This book asks the question: how have mafias helped define the modern world? While the narrative begins deep in the past, the bulk of the story takes place after 1800. It is during the following two hundred years that the political, economic and social forces most relevant to the development of mafias took shape. The critical chapters centre upon the decades between the end of the First World War and the close of the twentieth century. In these years we see the rise of those figures most synonymous with the idea of the mafia: Capone, Escobar, Du, Lansky, Mogilevich, El Chapo and the Krays to name a few. To understand these characters, and the gangs they led, Mafia will take readers on intimate tours of the locales that birthed their notoriety: Chicago, Sinaloa, Istanbul, Shanghai or the East End. In the spirit of Simon Sebag Montefiore's recent treatment of great families, or Sven Beckert's history of cotton, Mafia: A Global History explains how these organizations shape, as well as reflect, the construction of modern states, economies and societies that form our increasingly integrated world.

Part of The World in A Life series, this brief text provides insight into the life of Mustafa Kemal Atat├╝rk. By the outbreak of World War II, the Republic of Turkey epitomized more than a state bound for better times; it aspired to represent the essence of modern politics in the twentieth century. To contemporaries of this period, Mustafa Kemal Atat├╝rk-the country''s first president-was both the muse and the architect of this radicaltransformation. By the time of his death in 1938, he was regularly compared alongside other luminary statesmen of the post-Versailles era. Outside of Turkey, his name was synonymous with bold leadership and ambitious reform. Atat├╝rk''s reputation as a man both progressive and iconoclastic greatly augmented his already lofty status asTurkey''s premier general and war hero. Yet there were some aspects of his life presidency that tempered contemporary admiration for Mustafa Kemal. His acclaim and celebrity came with the understanding that he was a dictator with little patience for liberal democracy. Atat├╝rk''s inability to brook compromise and tolerate opposition engendered acts of violence and oppression that resulted in the deaths of large numbers of his fellow citizens. As a whole, the legacies of both his achievementsand flaws as a leader remain critical to any understanding of modern-day Turkey.We live in a global age where big concepts like "globalization" often tempt us to forget the personal side of the past. The titles in The World in A Life series aim to revive these meaningful lives. Each one shows us what it was like to live on a world historical stage. Brief, inexpensive, and thematic, each book can be read in a week, fit within a wide range of curricula, and shed insight into a particular place or time. Four to six short primary sources at the end of eachvolume sharpen the reader''s view of an individual''s impact on world history.