The Mafia is perhaps the most powerful criminal organization ever to have existed. Emerging in late-19th-century Sicily, it soon spread across Italy and the United States, creating a crime empire based on racketeering, drug smuggling, and ruthless intimidation.This lavish full-colour hardback is the complete history of the notorious organization from the ragtag bandits who terrorized the populations of rural Sicily through to the notorious gangsters of the Prohibition era to the Five Families that dominated the New York mob for much of the 20th century.Filled with infamous characters such as Al Capone, Charles ''Lucky'' Luciano, Totò Riina, and John Gotti, this book is a definitive history of the Mafia.