Rebels and Mafiosi: Death in a Sicilian Landscape

For centuries, Sicilian men of honour have fought the controls of government. Between 1820 and 1860, rebellions shook the island as these men joined with Sicily’s intellectuals in the struggle for independence from the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples. This account - which locates the emergence and evolution of the mafia in historical perspective - describes how those rebellions led to the birth of the modern mafia and traces the increasing influence of organized crime on the island. The alliance between two classes of Sicilians, James Fentress shows, made possible both the revolution and the mafia. Militancy in the ranks of the revolution taught men of honour how to organize politically. Communities then resisted the demands of central government by devising alternative controls through a network of local groups - the mafia cosche . Fentress tells this story of honour and crime from the viewpoint of the Sicilians, and in particular of the great city of Palermo - from Garibaldi’s historic arrival in 1860 to the spectacular mafia trials around the turn of the century. Drawing on police archives, trial records, contemporary journalism and government reports, he describes how enduring political power plus a (richly deserved) reputation for violence helped the mafia secure covert relationships with groups that publicly denounced them. These contacts still protect today’s mafiosi from Rome’s efforts to eradicate the organization.