A picture of Philadelphia radically different from the conventional portrait of a staid old city, corrupt and contented. The men and women of Philadelphia who emerge in these pages are anything but staid, and certainly not contented. Although much has been written about elite Philadelphians, only in recent decades have historians paid attention to the Jews and working-class blacks, the immigrant Irish, Italians, and Poles who settled in the city and gave such sections as Moyamensing, Southwark, South Philadelphia, and Kensington their vitality. In this classic of social and ethnic history,...

Representing over four decades of work, this monograph by historian Mark H. Haller includes his work on organized crime in Chicago, particularly the origins of John Landesco's now classic work titled Organized Crime in Chicago (1929), written for the Illinois Crime Survey. Essays on organized crime in both Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as vignettes on Al "Scarface" Capone, Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, and Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, provide readers with a lively selection of Haller's commentary. Finally, this book incorporates Haller's critique of the Mafia model of organized crime...

Representing over four decades of work, this monograph by historian Mark H. Haller includes his work on organized crime in Chicago, particularly the origins of John Landesco's now classic work titled Organized Crime in Chicago (1929), written for the Illinois Crime Survey. Essays on organized crime in both Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as vignettes on Al "Scarface" Capone, Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, and Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, provide readers with a lively selection of Haller's commentary. Finally, this book incorporates Haller's critique of the Mafia model of organized crime...