Theft Of The Nation

Organized crime in America today is not the tough hoodlums familiar to moviegoers and TV watchers. It is more sophisticated, with many college graduates, gifted with organizational genius, all belonging to twenty-four tightly knit "families," who have corrupted legitimate business and infiltrated some of the highest levels of local, state, and federal government. Their power reaches into Congress, into the executive and judicial branches, police agencies, and labor unions, and into such business enterprises as real estate, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, linen-supply houses, and garbage-collection routes.How does organized crime operate? How dangerous is it? What are the implications for American society? How may we cope with it? In answering these questions, Cressey asserts that because organized crime provides illicit goods and services demanded by legitimate society, it has become part of legitimate society. This fascinating account reveals the parallels: the growth of specialization, "big-business practices" (pooling of capital and reinvestment of profits; fringe benefits like bail money), and government practices (negotiated settlements and peace treaties, defined territories, fair-trade agreements).For too long we have, as a society, concerned ourselves only with superficial questions about organized crime. "Theft of the Nation" focuses on to a more profound and searching level. Of course, organized crime exists. Cressey not only establishes this fact, but proceeds to explore it rigorously and with penetration. One need not agree with everything Cressey writes to conclude that no one, after the publication of "Theft of the Nation", can be knowledgeable about organized crime without having read this book.

Theft of a Nation is a powerful criminological examination of Wall Street's recent financial meltdown. Through the lenses of white collar crime and victimology, the book presents a critical assessment of the economic and political elites who were responsible, shows how Americans were victimized, and assesses the resulting regulation.

Tom Gallagher's analysis of the largest country in the Balkans focuses upon its efforts to transform its image. At the same time many of the key legacies of the Ceausescu regime remain intact. The success of NATO expansion and European enlargement depend upon the outcomes of necessary reforms in Romania.

Since the 1989 fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, Romania, arguably the most regimented of states in the Soviet bloc, has struggled with the transition from totalitarian state to democratic nation. In this insightful examination of modern Romania, Tom Gallagher provides an overview of Romania’s unique political and social history, focusing on both its national identity as well as the legacy of Soviet rule. Gallagher provides an in-depth look at Romania since 1989, focusing on the government’s attempts at economic reform, engagement with democracy, problems with corruption among the ruling elite, as well as the weakness of civil society and the resilience of implacable expressions of nationalism. Ultimately, Gallagher argues that thus far democracy has essentially failed in Romania. In fact, he warns that Romania is on its way to becoming one of the most unequal states in Europe and quite possibly a future trouble-spot unless efforts to resume much-needed reforms are undertaken.

America is a smuggler nation. Our long history of illicit imports has ranged from West Indies molasses and Dutch gunpowder in the 18th century, to British industrial technologies and African slaves in the 19th century, to French condoms and Canadian booze in the early 20th century, to Mexican workers and Colombian cocaine in the modern era. Contraband capitalism, it turns out, has been an integral part of American capitalism. Providing a sweeping narrative history from colonial times to the present, Smuggler Nation is the first book to retell the story of America--and of its engagement with its neighbors and the rest of the world--as a series of highly contentious battles over clandestine commerce. As Peter Andreas demonstrates in this provocative and fascinating account, smuggling has played a pivotal and too often overlooked role in America's birth, westward expansion, and economic development, while anti-smuggling campaigns have dramatically enhanced the federal government's policing powers. The great irony, Andreas tells us, is that a country that was born and grew up through smuggling is today the world's leading anti-smuggling crusader. In tracing America's long and often tortuous relationship with the murky underworld of smuggling, Andreas provides a much-needed antidote to today's hyperbolic depictions of out-of-control borders and growing global crime threats. Urgent calls by politicians and pundits to regain control of the nation's borders suffer from a severe case of historical amnesia, nostalgically implying that they were ever actually under control. This is pure mythology, says Andreas. For better and for worse, America's borders have always been highly porous. Far from being a new and unprecedented danger to America, the illicit underside of globalization is actually an old American tradition. As Andreas shows, it goes back not just decades but centuries. And its impact has been decidedly double-edged, not only subverting U.S. laws but also helping to fuel America's evolution from a remote British colony to the world's pre-eminent superpower.

One woman’s pursuit of justice leads her on a riveting adventure into the world of art trafficking. In this powerful memoir, Tasoula Hadjitofi reveals her perilous journey orchestrating “The Munich Case”—one of the largest European art trafficking stings since WWII. With the Bavarian police in place, the Cypriots on their way, seventy under-cover agents bust into the Munich apartment of a notorious Turkish smuggler suspected of holding looted antiquities. Tasoula places everything on the line to repatriate her country’s sacred treasures, unaware that treachery lies in the shadow of her success. The Icon Hunter is a story torn from the pages of Tasoula's life as she and her Greek Cypriot family lose everything during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Hundreds of ancient Cypriot churches are destroyed, their contents looted and all signs of her Greek Cypriot culture erased as if it never existed. As a refugee, she wants justice. And then fate intervenes in the form of an archbishop and a dubious art dealer in search of redemption. Even as unspeakable personal tragedy strikes, she never gives up her search knowing the special place these antiquities hold in the hearts of Orthodox Christians. These icons are not just masterpieces—they are artistic manifestations of faith and a gate-way to the divine. Using family and faith as her touchstones, Tasoula takes on these “merchants of God” as she navigates the underworld of art trafficking. Tasoula believes this to be her calling, and the Archbishop of Cyprus entrusts her—an ordinary woman, wife, and mother—with the mission. In order to succeed, however, she must place her trust in an art dealer known for his double-dealing. Inspiring and empowering, The Icon Hunter is a gripping story by a remarkable woman that will captivate readers long after the nal page.