Representing over four decades of work, this monograph by historian Mark H. Haller includes his work on organized crime in Chicago, particularly the origins of John Landesco's now classic work titled Organized Crime in Chicago (1929), written for the Illinois Crime Survey. Essays on organized crime in both Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as vignettes on Al "Scarface" Capone, Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, and Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, provide readers with a lively selection of Haller's commentary. Finally, this book incorporates Haller's critique of the Mafia model of organized crime and his elaboration of the illegal enterprise model of gangsters and their role in the American subeconomy, including the historical importance of prohibition and 19th century gambling syndicates in urban America.

A picture of Philadelphia radically different from the conventional portrait of a staid old city, corrupt and contented. The men and women of Philadelphia who emerge in these pages are anything but staid, and certainly not contented. Although much has been written about elite Philadelphians, only in recent decades have historians paid attention to the Jews and working-class blacks, the immigrant Irish, Italians, and Poles who settled in the city and gave such sections as Moyamensing, Southwark, South Philadelphia, and Kensington their vitality. In this classic of social and ethnic history, the authors draw on census schedules, court records, city directories, and tax records as well as newspaper files and other sources to give a picture of the ways in which these less-privileged groups of Philadelphians lived. What emerges is a picture of Philadelphia radically different from the conventional portrait of a staid old city. "Just the kind of book that is needed. It should be stimulating to all historians interested in urban America."--"Journal of American History" Allen F. Davis has published many books, including "The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society" and "Spearheads for Reform: The Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement, 1890-1914." Mark Haller is the author of "Eugenics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought." Both are professors of history at Temple University.

Representing over four decades of work, this monograph by historian Mark H. Haller includes his work on organized crime in Chicago, particularly the origins of John Landesco's now classic work titled Organized Crime in Chicago (1929), written for the Illinois Crime Survey. Essays on organized crime in both Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as vignettes on Al "Scarface" Capone, Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, and Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, provide readers with a lively selection of Haller's commentary. Finally, this book incorporates Haller's critique of the Mafia model of organized crime and his elaboration of the illegal enterprise model of gangsters and their role in the American subeconomy, including the historical importance of prohibition and 19th century gambling syndicates in urban America.