Mafia Dynasty; The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family

New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1993. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. 25 cm. xiii, [1], 450 pages. Illustrations. Notes on sources. Index. There is a barcode overlay sticker on the rear of the DJ that has been partially removed. The author traces the history of the Gambino crime family, from its beginnings in the 1920s through the conviction of John Gotti. John Hagy Davis (June 14, 1929 - January 29, 2012) was an American author who wrote several books on the Mafia, both the Sicilian Mafia and its Italian-American offshoot. Davis was a 1951 graduate of Princeton University as well as Columbia University. While serving in the United States Navy during the 1950s, he was officer with the Sixth Fleet stationed in Naples, Italy. Davis said that he was required to "deal with the mafia hoods who controlled the ports" as part of his duties as shore patrol and legal officer. He stated that during his time there he became interested in the history of Italy and studied the history of the mafia. After the Navy, Davis studied at the Italian Institute for Historical Studies in Naples, and directed a cultural center in southern Italy. HarperCollins published Davis's 1993 book Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. According to Publishers Weekly, the book "explores the history of the Cosa Nostra from its roots in Italy and brilliantly depicts the violent, vicious, vulgar brotherhood." Kirkus wrote that the book was "[a]n authoritative overview of the nation's premier criminal organization, and of the greed and hubris that have toppled its leaders time and again." The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing. The family was one of the five families that were founded in New York after the Castellammarese War of 1931. For most of the next quarter-century, it was a minor player in organized crime. Its most prominent member during this time was its underboss Albert Anastasia, who rose to infamy as the operating head of the underworld's enforcement arm, Murder, Inc. He remained in power even after Murder, Inc. was smashed in the late 1940s, and took over his family in 1951—by all accounts, after murdering the family's founder Vincent Mangano—which was then recognized as the Anastasia crime family. The rise of what was the most powerful crime family in America for a time began in 1957, when Anastasia was assassinated while sitting in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Experts believe that Anastasia's underboss Carlo Gambino helped orchestrate the hit to take over the family. Gambino partnered with Meyer Lansky to control gambling interests in Cuba. The family's fortunes grew through 1976, when Gambino appointed his brother-in-law Paul Castellano as boss upon his death. Castellano infuriated upstart capo John Gotti, who orchestrated Castellano's murder in 1985. Gotti's downfall came in 1992, when his underboss Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano cooperated with the FBI. Gravano's cooperation brought down Gotti, along with most of the top members of the Gambino family.