Early NYC Mafia issue now a Kindle e-book

An Informer issue devoted to a groundbreaking discussion of the evolution of the early New York City Mafia is now available as an Amazon Kindle e-book. It is our hope that this will allow a wider audience for the "alternative theory" presented by Mafia historians Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van`t Riet.

Click to preview this issue on Amazon (US).

Sicilian hometown allegiance and kinship ties may have played larger roles in early Mafia development than previously thought. Using government records, other archival sources and published accounts, the writers follow offshoots of established Sicilian underworld organizations from Palermo, Corleone and Castellammare del Golfo as these propagate in a new land. The writers define relationships among and within the developing crime families and explore factional frictions through two early Mafia wars.

The discussion is accompanied by photographs, maps, charts and timelines. More than two hundred endnotes are provided.

This Informer issue was first released in print and PDF electronic editions (through MagCloud) in May 2014, and those editions remain available. It is the third Informer issue to be made available as a Kindle e-book.

June 2015 Issue of Informer

June 2015 Issue Contents
Editorial

Often neglected in discussions of United States Mafia history, Calabrian-American organized criminals take center stage in this issue of Informer. Our feature article is a biography of Albert Anastasia, researched and written by Lennert van`t Riet, David Critchley and Steve Turner. The bloody early years of Calabria-born Anastasia’s underworld career and his supervision of the activities of the Murder Incorporated enforcement arm are the focuses of the piece. (Preview)

In a much lengthier-than-usual column at the back of the issue, Thomas Hunt considers the possibility that the Calabresi themselves formed an extensive criminal network in the U.S. and Canada before they were absorbed into the American Mafia’s Sicilian dominated crime families in the early years of the Prohibition Era. (Preview)

Also in this issue:

• Edmond Valin clears up the questions of how, when and why the American Mafia became known as “La Cosa Nostra,” and he shows that Mafiosi themselves were strongly influenced by the official nomenclature of J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Preview)
• Richard N. Warner examines the ironic role played by America’s white racism (and Hoover’s FBI) in the founding and growth of African American street gangs. (Preview)
• Warner also reviews Gary Krist’s most recent work, Empire of Sin. (Preview)

We expect that our regular readers already have noticed our change in format — a return to the full magazine size we formerly used from September 2008 through June 2012. While there were benefits to the more compact “digest” size we used from October 2012 through November 2014, the move back to a full magazine format was made due to the same irresistible force that lies behind all changes in the publishing world: the publisher likes it better.

Seventy-six pages, including covers and six pages of advertisements.

Preview/purchase electronic and print editions through MagCloud.

How 'Mafia' became 'La Cosa Nostra'

June 2015 Issue Contents
Feature article

How ‘Mafia’ became ‘La Cosa Nostra’

by Edmond Valin

"In the early 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) developed information that indicated the criminal organization commonly known as the Mafia was in fact called La Cosa Nostra by its members. Mafia turncoat Joseph Valachi would go on to make La Cosa Nostra (LCN) a household name through testimony at the McClellan Hearings in 1963. Some critics at the time said the new term was 'fabricated,' since no one else in law enforcement had ever heard of it. Now, declassified FBI documents can show how this obscure Italian phrase entered the lexicon of American crime..."

Thirteen and a half pages, including six and a half pages of endnotes, an appendix and a sidebar article.

Preview/purchase electronic and print editions through MagCloud.

June 2015 issue preview

Here's a look at the cover of the next issue of Informer (release date is June 19).

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May 2014 Issue of Informer

May 2014 Issue Contents
Editorial

It would be both foolish and profoundly egotistical for any historian to believe that he or she had penned the “final word” on a subject. History is always being revised and expanded. New sources become available. New perspectives are applied to data. One historian's discoveries spark another's discoveries. That, really, is what makes the field of study exciting and alive.

A historian may be of far greater use for attempting to write the first word on a subject or a completely new interpretation of available data. Such an achievement revitalizes the field, as it sends colleagues scrambling to comprehend its ramifications, to compare the new account to source material, to contest its validity or to accept it as part of a foundation for future research.

To date, revisions of early New York Mafia history have focused generally on enhancing the stories within a traditional framework of accepted history. The technological revolution has aided immeasurably our search for more and better data on the formative era of organized crime in New York, and vast amounts of information have come to light in very recent years.

Some of that newly mined information has been absorbed easily into the traditional narrative. But much of it has not fit and has frustratingly resisted incorporation into the old accounts. Those with confidence in the new data have been forced to conclude that the traditional history is somehow inaccurate and/or incomplete.

This entire issue of Informer is dedicated to presenting a single work — a lengthy article by Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van`t Riet —  that attempts to formulate a coherent, new historical theory around all we currently know of the early New York Mafia (PREVIEW). Researching, writing and illustrating it has been an enormous project for them. Preparing it for publication and presenting it in this issue has been no small matter for Informer. But we are satisfied that the efforts are all worthwhile.

While documenting how far our knowledge of the early Mafia has progressed, the article challenges us to see things in a new way, to consider the possibilities presented by recent discoveries and to commit ourselves anew to the exciting work of history.

108 magazine pages, including cover and advertisements.

Preview/purchase print and electronic magazine editions through MagCloud

Preview/purchase Kindle e-book edition through Amazon.

Early NY Mafia - an alternative theory

May 2014 Issue Contents
Feature Article

Sicilian hometown allegiance and kinship ties

may have played larger roles in early Mafia

development than previously thought

The Early New York Mafia:

An Alternative Theory

by Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van`t Riet.

"Much of what has been widely accepted as early New York City Mafia history hinges on a particular interpretation of a small collection of source material. As availability of sources from that early era has improved, additional interpretations have become possible. It now appears that many of the long-accepted 'facts' and the history that has been woven from them may have been flawed. We cannot know what additional revelations the future may hold, so it is unlikely that our analysis of existing materials will be 'the final word' written on this subject. However, it is important to document the additional clues that recently have come to light and to fit a workable interpretation to the new data as a starting point for future research..."

100 pages, including 21 images, 21 maps and tables, and 12 and a half pages of notes.

Preview/purchase print and electronic editions through MagCloud

The Mob's Worst Year: 1957 - Part Two

Vol. 2, Issue 1, Jan. 2009 Contents
Feature Article
Part 2 of 2

Fifty years ago, lawmakers, enforcement officials

and the American public finally became aware

of the depth and breadth of the Mafia underworld.

The Mob's Worst Year

by Thomas Hunt

First paragraph:
"Albert Anastasia’s death in 'the chair' might have been preordained. The legendary Mafia boss and accomplished murderer managed to escape death in Sing Sing Prison’s electric chair in 1921, only to meet his end in a barber chair 35 years later."


Seven and a half pages article body
Two pages of endnotes
Seven images.

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