I'm almost finishing this one. The book counts the story of the Cosa Nostra, the sicilian mafia, since it's beggining in the 19th century in the Palermo lemon groves, through the first world war and the rising of the Fascism in Italy till the present day, with a few pages on the ramifications of the organisation in the USA, the birth of it with the great sicilian influx and some early reports of the mafia related crimes in the States and early mafiosos.
It's really interesting to see how the mafia got through a lot of problems that easily could have meant the end of it, but, somehow, and through various schemes, they've survived, grow bigger and spread through the whole island and to the other side of the Atlantic. A lot of trials, a lot of evidence, all came to light in all these years, yet, not until the 1980's, with the beggining of the
pentitos evidence testemonies and the work of Judge Falcone, the mafia never got hit really big.
Yet, it was not destroyed, and there's not and end in sight either.
I'm still in the beggining of these one, so can't say much about it besides it looks really interesting and well documented.
The book is about the
gulags, the USSR forced labour camps that the soviet regime used throughout the whole first half of the last century. It documents the living of the prisioners, the conditions, the killings, and the great importance that the production in the camps had in the Soviet economy and war effort.
I'm still a bit past the first chapter, so can't say much about it yet...
