The American mafia has long held powerful sway over our collective cultural imagination. But how many of us truly understand how a clandestine Sicilian criminal organisation came to exert its influence over nearly every level of American society?

In BORGATA: RISE OF EMPIRE, former mafia member Louis Ferrante pulls back the curtain on the criminal organisation that transformed America. From the potent political cauldron of nineteenth-century Sicily to American cities such as New Orleans, New York and the gangster's paradise of Las Vegas, Ferrante traces the social, economic and political forces that powered the mafia's unstoppable rise. We follow the early mob as they provide alcohol to the American public during prohibition, aid U. S. Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, establish a gambling mecca in the Nevada desert - and unofficially take control of the island of Cuba.

Ferrante's vivid portrayal of early American mobsters - among them Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky - fills in crucial gaps of mafia history to deliver the most comprehensive account yet of the world's most famous criminal fraternity.

This volume is the first in a groundbreaking new trilogy from a man who has seen it all from the inside. Ferrante's masterful account journeys from the group's inauspicious beginnings to the height of their power as the most influential organised criminal network in America.

From Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy —the #1 bestseller that became Martin Scorsese’s Academy Award–winning film GoodFellas—comes the brilliantly told true story of love, marriage, adultery, murder, and revenge, Mafia-style . . . the shattering inside account of how the mob finally lost its stranglehold over the neon money-making machine it created: the multibillion-dollar casino gambling industry of Las Vegas.

No one knew more about casinos than Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the gambling mastermind who, along with his best friend and partner, Anthony Spilotro, virtually ran Las Vegas for the mob. For years, it was the perfect arrangement—Lefty provided the smarts, while Tony kept the bosses happy with their weekly suitcases filled with millions in skimmed cash.

It should have lasted forever, but Lefty’s obsession with running the town—and Tony’s obsession with Lefty’s beautiful showgirl wife, Geri—eventually led to the betrayals and investigations that exploded into one of the greatest debacles in mob history.

The Japanese mafia - known collectively as yakuza - has had a considerable influence on Japanese society over the past fifty years. Based on extensive interviews with criminals, police officers, lawyers, journalists, and academics, this is the first academic analysis in English of Japan's criminal syndicates.