St. Louis was a city under siege during Prohibition. Seven different criminal gangs violently vied for control of the town's illegal enterprises. Although their names (the Green Ones, the Pillow Gang, the Russo Gang, Egan's Rats, the Hogan Gang, the Cuckoo Gang and the Shelton Gang) are familiar to many, their exploits have remained largely undocumented until now. Learn how an awkward gunshot wound gave the Pillow Gang its name, and read why Willie Russo's bizarre midnight interview with a reporter from the St. Louis Star involved an automatic pistol and a floating hunk of cheese. From daring bank robberies to cold-blooded betrayals, The Gangs of St. Louis chronicles a fierce yet juicy slice of the Gateway City's history that rivaled anything seen in New York or Chicago.

Led by two childhood pals, Thomas "Snake" Kinney and Tom Egan, the Egan's Rats emerged from St. Louis's Irish slums. They learned their trade the old-fashioned way, via robberies, brawls, burglaries, and shootings. When Kinney ran on the Democratic ticket in the third ward, his friends were at the polls to ensure he got enough votes. For nearly ten years the gang cut a large swath in St. Louis, instilling fear wherever it went. With Snake Kinney, a Missouri state senator and Tom Egan, St. Louis's most dangerous gangster, the gang boasted nearly 400 members. Nearly everyone who lived in St. Louis was touched by them in some way or another. 'Egan's Rats' provides a fascinating glimpse into a past that wasn't always idyllic. It was an era in which roving gangs of thugs terrorized voters with impunity, when alcohol was illegal, when a gangster could brag of his power in the newspaper, and when the tendrils of St. Louis crime reached all the way into the White House.

Central Asia, home of Tamerlane and the Silk Road, is a crossroads of great cultures and civilizations. In 1991 five nations at the heart of the region -- Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- suddenly became independent from the USSR. Today they sit strategically between Russia, China, and Iran, holding some of the world's largest deposits of oil and natural gas. Long-suppressed ethnic identities are finding new expression in language, religion, the arts, international alignments -- and occasional civil conflicts.

In the decades ahead, what kind of societies will the more than 50 million people living in Central Asia create? Single-party secular states, Islamic republics, market democracies, something else?

Civil Society in Central Asia is a pathbreaking collection of essays by scholars and activists that illuminates the social and institutional forces shaping this important region's future. Are the foundations of a democratic order emerging? As the essays suggest, trends are contradictory and vary in each country.

This timely book matches contributions by leading specialists such as S. Frederick Starr, Olivier Roy, Scott Horton, Alla Kazakina, Abdumannob Polat, and Reuel Hanks with the insights of individuals who have been on the front lines of the struggle for civil society in Central Asia itself -- representatives of organizations such as Counterpart, Internews, and the Kazakstan International Bureau for Human Rights. Topics range from the legal framework for free association to grassroots movements for environmental protection, the resurgence of Islam, and the viability of the Soviet-era collective farms. A 75-page appendix provides a guide tomany of the most significant projects being carried out by local and international NGOs in the region.