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Blood Brotherhoods: The Rise of the Italian Mafias

John Dickie's two books, Mafia Brotherhoods and Mafia Republic, arise from a single research project on the history of Italy's mafias from their origins to the present day. The first volume ends at the Allied Liberation of Italy, and the second volume begins at the same chronological point. The opening of the second volume, Mafia Republic, inevitably involved some recapitulation and repetition of some introductory notions. For the most part in these sections of the book, however, the overlap is minimal because John Dickie found ways of telling the same story with fresh material and research: such as on the career and views of Sicilian magistrate Giuseppe Guido Lo Schiavo, the confinement in Reggio Calabria mental asylum of Giuseppe Musolino, and the later life of camorra "supergrass" Gennaro Abbatemaggio.

Blood Brotherhoods required the collection and analysis of very extensive primary and secondary sources. Its 421 pp. exc. indices constitute something unique: a narrative survey of the early history of all Italy's mafias. Apart from the originality of its overall comparative approach, it contains cutting-edge research enough for journal articles on: the 'ndrangheta's origins; women in the mafias in history; Sicilian mafia infiltration of the magistracy in the 1870s; the 'ndrangheta's abandonment of pimping and embracing of familism; early evidence of coordination among 'ndrangheta cells. Its engaging narrative required more stylistic work than conventional academic prose.