The Neighborhood Outfit: Organized Crime in Chicago Heights

THE NEIGHBORHOOD OUTFIT          LOUIS CORSINO

From the slot machine trust of the early 1900s to the prolific Prohibition-era bootleggers allied with Al Capone, and for decades beyond, organized crime in Chicago Heights, Illinois, represented a vital component of the Chicago Outfit. Louis Corsino taps interviews, archives, government documents, and his own family's history to tell the story of the Chicago Heights "boys" and their place in the city's Italian American community in the twentieth century. Debunking the popular idea of organized crime as a uniquely Italian enterprise, Corsino delves into the social and cultural forces that contributed to illicit activities. As he shows, discrimination blocked opportunities for Italians' social mobility and the close-knit Italian communities that arose in response to such limits produced a rich supply of social capital Italians used to pursue alternative routes to success that ranged from Italian grocery stores to union organizing to, on occasion, crime. 

PAT'S REVIEW

The author looks back at the life of his family in a neighborhood of Chicago and how his father grandfather was made men and who they worked. Not what you see in the movies but the local guys. Running jukeboxes, vending machines, how during the prohibition they ran sugar. Just to name a few. They worked their neighborhood and did small things for the men higher than them. Just not what you see in the movies. I thought this to be an excellent book and more true to the life of a made man than most of the movies anyway. A very good book. I received this book from Netgallet.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us atwww.1rad-readerreviews.com