This book chronicles gang and gangster history using profiles to tell the rise of the gangster and history of crime in Miami. Known as the Magic City, the book traces gangsters that include the notorious smugglers of the Prohibition era, famous mobsters like Al Capone and Myer Lansky, the Cuban Mafia, the Colombian cartel, the Russian mafia, and the current street gangs that have come to plague Miami after the advent of crack cocaine.

Not as famous as Al Capone, but perhaps even more vicious, are John 'Mushmouth' Johnson, Jeff Fort and Larry Hoover from the Chicago underworld. Ron Chepesiuk reveals, for the first time, the stories of these African-American gangsters who were every bit as powerful, intriguing and colourful as the Windy City's more famous gangsters of the mid-to-late 20th century.

Chili Pimping in Atlantic City: The Memoir of a Small-Time Pimp and Hustler, the controversial autobiography of Michael Mick-Man Gourdine, AKA the Candyman, as he was known on the street. The book pulls no punches and provides an honest and sometimes shocking look at what one man from the wrong side of tracks felt compelled to do to achieve the American Dream.Gourdine became a pimp who operated primarily on the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey, while working as a corrupt NYPD cop who specialized in narcotics trafficking and prostitution. Employed as a police officer from 1990 to 2000, Gourdine reportedly made an estimated $2.5 to 3 million dollars in illegal graft, bribes, prostitution and drug dealing before being fired.Gourdine was a chili pimp-that is, a small time pimp who had between one and three girls working for him. As a chili pimp, Gourdine didn't stay in the most expensive hotels or eats in the most expensive restaurants; he couldn't afford it. Instead he relied on is his ability to give his girls more care, attention and on-the-spot dependability than a bonafide pimp could give. Today, Gourdine recalls, "It is a sad existence that I was lucky enough to escape and maybe some readers will avoid after reading my book."Chili Pimping in Atlantic City describes how Gourdine developed the stomach for the pimping game, became a corrupt cop, learned the pimping trade and survived on the mean streets. The author paints vivid profiles of some the interesting characters he meets along the way. He concludes with some hard lessons. "The best way to steer a young boy away from pimping is to change his environment," Gourdine writes. "If a young boy is starving, living without heat in his house, with no real men around him, guess what he's going to take when he sees the first person who he deems the best fit to survive in his dismal circumstances? And believe you me, he will not be a law abiding citizen."Gourdine now resides somewhere in New Jersey where he owns and manages numerous properties, and changes residences often. He is married with four sons.

Sergeant Smack chronicles the story of North Carolina's Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, an adventurer, gambler and one of U.S. history's most original gangsters. Under the cover of the Vietnam War and through the use of the U.S. military infrastructure, Atkinson masterminded an enterprising group of family members and former African American GIs that the DEA identified as one of history's ten top drug trafficking rings. Ike's organization moved heroin from Thailand to North Carolina and beyond. According to law enforcement sources, 1,000 pounds is a conservative estimate of the amount of heroin the ring transported annually from Bangkok, Thailand, through U.S. military bases, into the U.S. during its period of operation from 1968 to 1975. That amount translates to about $400 million worth of illegal drug sales during that period. Born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Ike Atkinson is a charismatic former U.S. Army Master Sergeant, career drug smuggler, scam artist, card shark and doting family man whom law enforcement nick-named Sergeant Smack. He was never known to carry a gun, and today many retired law enforcement officials who had put him in jail refer to him as a "gentleman." Sergeant Smack's criminal activities sparked the creation of a special DEA unit code named CENTAC 9, which conducted an intensive three-year investigation across three continents. Sergeant Smack was elusive, but the discovery of his palm print on a kilo of heroin finally took him down. In 1987, Ike tried to revive his drug ring from Otisville Federal Penitentiary, but the Feds discovered the plot and set up a sting. The events that follow seem like the narrative for a Robert Ludlum novel. Atkinson was convicted again and nine years added to his sentence. Ike was released from prison in 2006 after serving a 31-year jail sentence. Atkinson's story is controversial because his ring has been accused of smuggling heroin to the U.S. in the coffins and/or cadavers of dead American GIs. As this book shows, the accusation is completely false. The recent movie, "American Gangster," which depicted the criminal career of Frank Lucas, distorted Atkinson's historical role in the international drug trade. Sergeant Smack exposes the lies about the Ike Atkinson-Frank Lucas relationship and documents how Ike, not Lucas, pioneered the Asian heroin connection. "Drug kingpin Ike Atkinson, is the real deal, and not the stuff of Hollywood legend. The author delivers an eminently readable book about a genuine Mr Big who knows that no fictional makeover is required for his compelling story - the truth is more than enough." -Steve Morris, Publisher, New Criminologist "Sergeant Smack is meticulously researched and its prodding for the truth by author Ron Chepesiuk makes it an excellent non-fiction crime story. Along with a compelling history of Ike Atkinson's life and criminal career in drug smuggling, the author has managed to put the truth to numerous falsehoods contained in the major movie, American Gangster, about the life of Frank Lucas." -Jack Toal, retired DEA agent who worked the investigation of Frank Lucas "Finally, the real story. I've waited 40 years for this book." -Marc Levin, Director of the documentary, "Mr. Untouchable" "Ron Chepesiuk has gone from publishing the Black gangster classics, Gangsters of Harlem and Black Gangsters of Chicago, to crafting Sergeant Smack, an astonishing masterpiece." -David "Pop" Whetstone, Owner, Black Star Music and Video "Sergeant Smack forcefully debunks the urban legend of Black family groups smuggling heroin from Southeast Asia in the bodies of dead GI soldiers while recounting the colorful saga of the authentic American gangster. Highly recommended." -Gary Taylor, journalist and author of the award-winning true crime memoir, Luggage by Kroger.

Aroused by gains in civil rights and galvanized by the antiwar movement, radical leaders of the 1960s sought to make revolutionary changes in American society. Partly through their leadership, a generation was awakened by the call for a counterculture. That generation is now responsible for the same social and political structures they so adamantly, and sometimes violently, opposed. How did the sixties affect the counterculture leaders? And what are they doing now? Paul Krassner, Cleveland Sellers, Jane Adams, Dave Dellinger, Bill Ayers, Warren Hinckle, Peter Berg, Noam Chomsky, Tim Leary, Philip Berrigan, Anita Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Erica Huggins, Jim Fouratt, Bernadine Dohrn, Barry Melton, Peter Coyote, and Abbie Hoffman reflect on the seminal events that dominated the sixties and discuss the major issues and problems facing America (and them!) today.

Although modern authors continually produce important studies of the War Between the States, the firsthand accounts of those who were in the conflict remain the most valuable tools for understanding. This collection of letters and diaries provides glimpses into the lives of a diverse group of South Carolinians. Among the seventeen accounts are the voices of women, including a Confederate spy; of officers like Captain Obidiah Hardin, who left his beloved Palmetto State to fight and die in Virginia before the war was even a year old; and of common men, like German immigrant Augustus Franks, whose love for his adopted state compelled him to staunchly defend the Confederacy. Collected from the archives of Winthrop University, these remarkable documents give voices and faces to the war as it affected South Carolina and her citizens.

Here is the whole story of the world of drugs—from the infamous Opium Wars to the legal availability of narcotics in the United States during the past century; from the unexpected boost given to illicit drugs by Prohibition to the great success of the French Connection. The global drug trade is one of the most prominent examples of the law of supply and demand. Despite such countermeasures as the execution of narcotics dealers in China and the United States's much-ballyhooed "War on Drugs," drug traffickers have always managed to meet the demand and satisfy an ever-growing customer base. In addition to offering a wealth of little-known facts, The War on Drugs also covers major dealers, cartels, organizations, smuggling and anti-smuggling strategies, major miscalculations and disasters, drug epidemics, legal restraints, famous incidents, and more.

In recent years, a new wave of investigative journalists have become prominent. Some relish being "politically incorrect" (David Brock, author of The Real Anita Hill); others methodically shatter cultural icons (Douglas Frantz's expose of Washington insider Clark Clifford); and still others have revealed such horror as Cold War experimentation on unsuspecting citizens (Eileen Welsome's Pulitzer Prize-winning stories). In their own words, these journalists and nine others (Tim Weiner, John Camp, Marjie Lundstrom, Gerald Posner, Sydney Schanberg, David Burnham, Bryon Acohido, Dan Moldea and Brian Ross) provide insight to their jobs and the role of investigative journalism in American society.

For 20 years, the Cali drug cartel, a vast criminal conspiracy, pumped thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States, laundered billions of dollars in profits and was responsible for endemic political corruption and an untold number of murders and assassinations. It ultimately controlled 70 percent of the world's cocaine market, flooding towns and cities with the addictive white powder dubbed the "champagne of drugs."

Through organized violence, terrorist strategies, intimidation and bribery, the cartel became a major threat to Colombia's fragile stability. It also brought an unprecedented degree of strategy and planning to the drugs trade. It would take more than two decades and a global effort to bring it down.

In this first-ever account of the cartel's rise and fall, author Ron Chepesiuk provides a compelling insight into the history of international drug trafficking, organized crime and US drug policy. He draws vivid pictures of the gang's founders--Jose "the Chess Player" Londono and brothers Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela--and reveals how they built their empire, carving up the massive US market with their rival Medellin Cartel: New York going to Cali, Miami to Medellin.

Unlike Medellin, headed by the vicious Pablo Escobar, the men from Cali kept their complex operation in the shadows. It grew quickly and came to operate like a multinational corporation. In time, they became too big to share their spoils and fought an indescribably bloody war with the Medellin mob, a war they ultimately won.

Written with the pace and vividness of a thriller, "Drug Lords" also illustrates the similarities between global traffickers and international terrorists and compares the current war on terror with the war on drugs.