Download or read book Gangster Capitalism written by Michael Woodiwiss and published by Constable & Robinson. This book was released on 2005 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We know all about organized crime. Blockbuster movies and books, and thousands of news stories continually tell an eager public that organized crime is what gangsters do. Closely knit, ethnically distinct, and ruthlessly efficient, these mafias control the drugs trade, people trafficking and other serious crimes. If only states would take the threat seriously and recognize the global nature of modern organized crime, the FBI's success against the New York mafias could be replicated throughout the world. The wicked trade in addictive drugs could be halted. The trouble is, as Michael Woodiwiss demonstrates in shocking and surprising detail, what everyone knows is pretty much completely wrong. Organized crime is dominated by employees of multinational companies, politicians and bureaucrats. Gangsters are a problem, but they are minor players when compared with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that selectively enforce drugs prohibition and profit from it. The position of large corporations in the global economy provides the most mouth-watering opportunities for illegal profits. Woodiwiss shows how respectable businessmen and revered statesmen have seized these opportunities in an orgy of fraud and illegal violence that would leave the most hardened Mafioso speechless with admiration.
Download or read book Godfather of the Kremlin written by Paul Klebnikov and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2000 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the life of the head of one of Moscow's gangster families, who financed the reelection of Boris Yeltsin and became on of his key advisors.
Download or read book The Hidden History of Crime Corruption and States written by Renate Bridenthal and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-06 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renowned historical sociologist Charles Tilly wrote many years ago that “banditry, piracy, gangland rivalry, policing, and war-making all belong on the same continuum.” This volume pursues the idea by revealing how lawbreakers and lawmakers have related to one another on the shadowy terrains of power over wide stretches of time and space. Illicit activities and forces have been more important in state building and state maintenance than conventional histories have acknowledged. Covering vast chronological and global terrain, this book traces the contested and often overlapping boundaries between these practices in such very different polities as the pre-modern city-states of Europe, the modern nation-states of France and Japan, the imperial power of Britain in India and North America, Africa’s and Southeast Asia’s postcolonial states, and the emerging postmodern regional entity of the Mediterranean Sea. Indeed, the contemporary explosion of transnational crime raises the question of whether or not the relationship of illicit to licit practices may be mutating once more, leading to new political forms beyond the nation-state.
Download or read book War Is a Racket written by Smedley D. Butler and published by Wyatt North Publishing, LLC. This book was released on 2018-02-18 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War Is a Racket is a famous anti-war book written by retired Major General Smedley Buter. In the book, Butler discusses how businesses profit from conflict.
Download or read book A Companion to the Gangster Film written by George S. Larke-Walsh and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-11-20 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A companion to the study of the gangster film’s international appeal spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia A Companion to the Gangster Film presents a comprehensive overview of the newest scholarship on the contemporary gangster film genre as a global phenomenon. While gangster films are one of America’s most popular genres, gangster movies appear in every film industry across the world. With contributions from an international panel of experts, A Companion to the Gangster Film explores the popularity of gangster films across three major continents, the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The authors acknowledge the gangster genre’s popularity and examine the reasons supporting its appeal to twenty-first century audiences across the globe. The book examines common themes across all three continents such as production histories and reception, gender race and sexuality, mafia mythologies, and politics. In addition, the companion clearly shows that no national cinema develops in isolation and that cinema is a truly global popular art form. This important guide to the gangster film genre: Reveals how the gangster film engages in complex and contradictory themes Examines the changing face of the gangster film in America Explores the ideas of gangsterism and migration in the Hispanic USA, Latin America and the Caribbean Discusses the wide variety of gangster types to appear in European cinema Contains a review of a wide-range of gangster films from the Americans, Europe, and Asia Written for academics and students of film, A Companion to the Gangster Film offers a scholarly and authoritative guide exploring the various aspects and international appeal of the gangster film genre.
Download or read book Retail Gangster written by Gary Weiss and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2022-08-23 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of the spectacular rise and fall of Eddie Antar, better known as "Crazy Eddie," whose home electronics empire changed the world even as it turned out to be one of the biggest business scams of all time Back in the fall of 2016 we heard the news about the passing of Eddie Antar, "Crazy Eddie" as he was known to millions of people, the man behind the successful chain of electronic stores and one of the most iconic ad campaigns in history. Few things evoke the New York of a particular era the way "Crazy Eddie! His prices are insaaaaane!" does. The journalist Herb Greenberg called his death the "end of an era" and that couldn't be more true. What's insane is that his story has never been told. Before Enron, before Madoff, before The Wolf of Wall Street, Eddie Antar's corruption was second to none. The difference was that it was a street franchise, a local place that was in the blood stream of everyone's daily life in the 1970s and early '80s. And Eddie pulled it off with a certain style, an in your face blue collar chutzpah. Despite the fact that then U.S. Attorney Michael Chertoffcalled him "the Darth Vader of capitalism" after the extent of the fraud was revealed, one of the largest SEC frauds in American history after Crazy Eddie's stores went public in 1984, Eddie was talked about fondly by the people who worked for him. They still do--there are myriads of ex-Crazy Eddie employee web pages that still attract fans, and the Crazy Eddie fraud scheme is now taught in every business school across the United States. Many years have passed since the franchise went down in spectacular fashion but Crazy Eddie's moment has endured the way that iconic brands and characters do--one only need Google the media outpouring that accompanied his death. Maybe it's because it crystallized everything about 1970s New York almost perfectly, the merchandise and rise of consumer electronics (stereos!), the ads (cheesy!), the money (cash!). In Retail Gangster, investigative journalist Gary Weiss takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most unbelievable business scam stories of all time, a story spanning continents and generations, reaffirming the old adage that the truth is often stranger than fiction.
Download or read book Moscow Rules written by Keir Giles and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Moscow, the world looks different. It is through understanding how Russia sees the world—and its place in it—that the West can best meet the Russian challenge. Russia and the West are like neighbors who never seem able to understand each other. A major reason, this book argues, is that Western leaders tend to think that Russia should act as a “rational” Western nation—even though Russian leaders for centuries have thought and acted based on their country's much different history and traditions. Russia, through Western eyes, is unpredictable and irrational, when in fact its leaders from the czars to Putin almost always act in their own very predictable and rational ways. For Western leaders to try to engage with Russia without attempting to understand how Russians look at the world is a recipe for repeated disappointment and frequent crises. Keir Giles, a senior expert on Russia at Britain's prestigious Chatham House, describes how Russian leaders have used consistent doctrinal and strategic approaches to the rest of the world. These approaches may seem deeply alien in the West, but understanding them is essential for successful engagement with Moscow. Giles argues that understanding how Moscow's leaders think—not just Vladimir Putin but his predecessors and eventual successors—will help their counterparts in the West develop a less crisis-prone and more productive relationship with Russia.
Download or read book Hunting Ghislaine written by John Sweeney and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A cracking read ... Ghislaine Maxwell's story has had endless column inches, but John gives such a great overview, and has mined so many sources that it still feels fresh and compelling.' Mail on Sunday Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who suffered a tragedy, the death of her father, a war hero, a philanthropist, a good man, in suspicious circumstances. She fled to New York where she made a new life with a brilliant mathematician. Her name is Ghislaine Maxwell and her lover was Jeffrey Epstein. Through Jeffrey, and her family name, Ghislaine became friends with some of the most powerful people on earth, ex-President Bill Clinton and President-to-be Donald Trump and the second son of the Queen of England, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. But this is no fairy tale. HUNTING GHISLAINE sets out the other side of the story, and it's one of the darkest you will ever read. Ghislaine's father, Robert Maxwell, was a sadist, a war criminal, a monster. His cruelty deformed Ghislaine Maxwell long before she met Jeffrey Epstein. Her one-time lover was convicted for being a paedophile. So Ghislaine's life has been spent serving not one monster but two. In HUNTING GHISLAINE, legendary investigative journalist John Sweeney uncovers the truth behind this fairy tale story in reverse.
Download or read book Violent Entrepreneurs written by Vadim Volkov and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-25 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Entering the shady world of what he calls "violent entrepreneurship," Vadim Volkov explores the economic uses of violence and coercion in Russia in the 1990s. Violence has played, he shows, a crucial role in creating the institutions of a new market economy. The core of his work is competition among so-called violence-managing agencies—criminal groups, private security services, private protection companies, and informal protective agencies associated with the state—which multiplied with the liberal reforms of the early 1990s. This competition provides an unusual window on the dynamics of state formation.Violent Entrepreneurs is remarkable for its research. Volkov conducted numerous interviews with members of criminal groups, heads of protection companies, law enforcement employees, and businesspeople. He bases his findings on journalistic and anecdotal evidence as well as on his own personal observation. Volkov investigates the making of violence-prone groups in sports clubs (particularly martial arts clubs), associations for veterans of the Soviet—Afghan war, ethnic gangs, and regionally based social groups, and he traces the changes in their activities across the decade. Some groups wore state uniforms and others did not, but all of their members spoke and acted essentially the same and were engaged in the same activities: intimidation, protection, information gathering, dispute management, contract enforcement, and taxation. Each group controlled the same resource—organized violence.
Download or read book Scarface Nation written by Ken Tucker and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Don't get high on your own supply." Brian de Palma's brash, bloody version of Scarface was trashed by critics when it came out twenty-five years ago and didn't do well at the box office, but has become a spectacular fan favorite and enduring pop culture classic since. "Never underestimate the greed of the other guy." What makes millions of people obsess over this movie? Why has Al Pacino's Tony Montana become the drug kingpin whose pugnacity and philosophy are revered in boardrooms and bedrooms across America? Who were the people that made the movie, influencing hip-hop style and swagger to this day? "The world is yours." Scarface Nation is Ken Tucker's homage to all things Scarface—from the stars that acted in it to the influence it's had on all of us, from facts, figures and stories about the making of the movie to a witty and comprehensive look at Scarface's traces in today's pop and political culture. "Say hello to my li'l fren!" You know you love the line. You know you've seen the movie more than once. Now dive into the ultimate book of Scarface—mounded as high as the pile of cocaine on Tony's desk with delicious details and stimulating observations. "You know what capitalism is? F--- you!"
Download or read book Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Globalization written by Peter Bloom and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authoritarian capitalism is rapidly evolving, intensifying and spreading across the globe. This updated second edition book demonstrates that the recent resurgence of fascism and repressive democracies are connected to and symptomatic of the fundamental authoritarianism of capitalism.
Download or read book Capitalism and Desire written by Todd McGowan and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-20 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite creating vast inequalities and propping up reactionary world regimes, capitalism has many passionate defenders—but not because of what it withholds from some and gives to others. Capitalism dominates, Todd McGowan argues, because it mimics the structure of our desire while hiding the trauma that the system inflicts upon it. People from all backgrounds enjoy what capitalism provides, but at the same time are told more and better is yet to come. Capitalism traps us through an incomplete satisfaction that compels us after the new, the better, and the more. Capitalism's parasitic relationship to our desires gives it the illusion of corresponding to our natural impulses, which is how capitalism's defenders characterize it. By understanding this psychic strategy, McGowan hopes to divest us of our addiction to capitalist enrichment and help us rediscover enjoyment as we actually experienced it. By locating it in the present, McGowan frees us from our attachment to a better future and the belief that capitalism is an essential outgrowth of human nature. From this perspective, our economic, social, and political worlds open up to real political change. Eloquent and enlivened by examples from film, television, consumer culture, and everyday life, Capitalism and Desire brings a new, psychoanalytically grounded approach to political and social theory.
Download or read book The Communist Horizon written by Jodi Dean and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2012-10-09 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new title in Verso’s Pocket Communism series, Jodi Dean unshackles the communist ideal from the failures of theSoviet Union. In an age when the malfeasance of internationalbanking has alerted exploited populations the world over to theunsustainability of an economic system predicated on perpetualgrowth, it is time the left ended its melancholic accommodationwith capitalism. In the new capitalism of networked information technologies, ourvery ability to communicate is exploited, but revolution is stillpossible if we organize on the basis of our common and collectivedesires. Examining the experience of the Occupy movement, Deanargues that such spontaneity can’t develop into a revolution andit needs to constitute itself as a party. An innovative work of pressing relevance, The Communist Horizonoffers nothing less than a manifesto for a new collective politics.
Download or read book Gangster Warlords written by Ioan Grillo and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Without this testimony, we simply cannot grasp what is going on . . . Americans would do well to read [Gangster Warlords]." --The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice From the author of El Narco, the shocking story of the men at the heads of cartels throughout Latin America: what drives them, what sustains their power, and how they might be brought down. In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps five hundred body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit-men to gun down forty-one police officers and prison guards in two days. In southern Mexico, a meth maker is venerated as a saint while enforcing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments, and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns, and humans. What they do affects you now--from the gas in your car, to the gold in your jewelry, to the tens of thousands of Latin Americans calling for refugee status in the U.S. Gangster Warlords is the first definitive account of the crime wars now wracking Central and South America and the Caribbean, regions largely abandoned by the U.S. after the Cold War. Author of the critically acclaimed El Narco, Ioan Grillo has covered Latin America since 2001 and gained access to every level of the cartel chain of command in what he calls the new battlefields of the Americas. Moving between militia-controlled ghettos and the halls of top policy-makers, Grillo provides a disturbing new understanding of a war that has spiraled out of control--one that people across the political spectrum need to confront now.
Download or read book Crack written by David Farber and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The crack cocaine years: from deviant globalization to the 'get money' culture of late twentieth-century America.
Download or read book Consequences of Capitalism written by Noam Chomsky and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2020-01-05 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is our "common sense" understanding of the world a reflection of the ruling class’s demands of the larger society? If we are to challenge the capitalist structures that now threaten all life on the planet, Chomsky and Waterstone forcefully argue that we must look closely at the everyday tools we use to interpret the world. Consequences of Capitalism make the deep, often unseen connections between common sense and power. In making these linkages we see how the current hegemony keep social justice movements divided and marginalized. More importantly, we see how we overcome these divisions.
Download or read book The Presidents vs the Press written by Harold Holzer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 593 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning presidential historian offers an authoritative account of American presidents' attacks on our freedom of the press—including a new foreword chronicling the end of the Trump presidency. “The FAKE NEWS media,” Donald Trump has tweeted, “is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” Has our free press ever faced as great a threat? Perhaps not—but the tension between presidents and journalists is as old as the republic itself. Every president has been convinced of his own honesty and transparency; every reporter who has covered the White House beat has believed with equal fervency that his or her journalistic rigor protects the country from danger. Our first president, George Washington, was also the first to grouse about his treatment in the newspapers, although he kept his complaints private. Subsequent chiefs like John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Barack Obama were not so reticent, going so far as to wield executive power to overturn press freedoms, and even to prosecute journalists. Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to actively manage the stable of reporters who followed him, doling out information, steering coverage, and squashing stories that interfered with his agenda. It was a strategy that galvanized TR’s public support, but the lesson was lost on Woodrow Wilson, who never accepted reporters into his inner circle. Franklin Roosevelt transformed media relations forever, holding more than a thousand presidential press conferences and harnessing the new power of radio, at times bypassing the press altogether. John F. Kennedy excelled on television and charmed reporters to hide his personal life, while Richard Nixon was the first to cast the press as a public enemy. From the days of newsprint and pamphlets to the rise of Facebook and Twitter, each president has harnessed the media, whether intentional or not, to imprint his own character on the office. In this remarkable new history, acclaimed scholar Harold Holzer examines the dual rise of the American presidency and the media that shaped it. From Washington to Trump, he chronicles the disputes and distrust between these core institutions that define the United States of America, revealing that the essence of their confrontation is built into the fabric of the nation.
