Salvatore Lupo teaches contemporary history at the University of Palermo. His research focuses on Italian history during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with a special emphasis on fascism and the Mafia. He is the associate editor in chief of the journal Meridiana, the most respected forum for the multidisciplinary discussion of the history and society of southern Italy.Antony Shugaar is a translator and author who received an NEA fellowship for his translation of Nanni Balestrini's Sandokan. His book reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Journal of Modern Italian Studies, and he has translated novels by Stefano Benni, Massimo Carlotto, and Carmine Abate, as well as works of journalism by Carlo Levi. He is the coauthor, with the late Gianni Guadalupi, of Latitude Zero: Tales of the Equator, and the author of I Lie for a Living.
For anyone who has grown weary of the fond treatment of the Mafia in American popular culture this book is a tonic. -- The New Yorker This is not a book of dramatic shoot-outs or even one that lingers long on individual characters. It is a sober assessment of the history of a movement. -- Hugh MacDonald, Scotland Sunday Herald With Lupo's History, you become a lot more knowledgeable about the phenomenon. -- Lee Lamothe, Toronto Globe & Mail