Before the notorious Five Families dominated U.S. organized crime, there was the one-fingered criminal genius Giuseppe Morello and his lethal coterie. Combining first-rate scholarship and pulse-quickening action, Mike Dash brings to life this little-known story, following the rise of the Mafia in America from the 1890s to the 1920s, from the villages of Sicily to the streets of Little Italy. Using an array of primary sources—hitherto untapped Secret Service archives, prison records, and interviews with surviving family members—Dash has written a groundbreaking account of the crucial period when the criminal underworld exploded with fury across the nation.

The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder and The Birth of the American Mafia

Biographies & Memoirs

DASH, MIKE

Historical

Ballantine Books

Hundreds of books have been written about the American Mafia, but none has told how it came into existence. This one does. Mafia books are notoriously unreliable, too often filled with the recycled errors of earlier authors. This one has been painstakingly researched from primary sources, including interviews with surviving family members and a vast, previously unexamined Secret Service archive. The result is an extraordinary work of history that grips, astonishes and chills the blood like a thriller. It tells the little-known story of the Morello family, pioneers of protection rackets, bizarre rituals and Mafia wars. Before the Five Families who dominated US organized crime for a bloody half-century, there was the surpassingly cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Born into a life of poverty in rural Sicily, Morello became an American nightmare. Mike Dash follows the birth of the Mafia in America from the 1890s to the 1920s, from the wharves of New Orleans to the streets of Little Italy. He brings to life the remarkable villains and unusual heroes of the Mafia’s early years, and does so without ever resorting to fiction or “imagined” history. The First Family is more than just a pulse-quickening Mafia narrative. This is how it really happened.

The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia

History

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Doubleday, Canada

A look at the world of the strange and unexplained by a paranormal investigator takes readers on a tour of the globe while uncovering mysteries ranging from the Roswell Incident to bizarre phone calls from the grave.

BORDERLANDS

Reference

RANDOM HOUSE UK

Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown

Explore the Borderlands... * The charred remains of Helen Conway, whose body "exploded." Was this a case of spontaneous combustion? * Discoveries of 130-foot-long boa constrictors and twelve-foot giant kangaroos. What other species have gone undiscovered? *In England, a town is pelted from the sky by hundreds of tiny rose-colored frogs. Is this a one-time event, an omen, or a bizarre natural phenomenon? Near-death experiences...lake monsters...crop circles...fairies...visions of the Virgin Mary...Using his vast research and privileged access to case files, noted paranormal investigator Mike Dash has compiled this unprecedented collection of the most baffling puzzles of our time. Touring the globe and sifting through a vast array of eyewitness accounts and film and photographic evidence, Dash separates genuine cases from hoaxes and dares to record those macabre, inexplicable, and terrifying events where there is no other explanation except--that what people saw, heard, and sometimes lived to tell about is true!

Religion & Spirituality

New Age & Spirituality

Dell

Explore the Borderlands...* The charred remains of Helen Conway, whose body "exploded."   Was this a case of spontaneous combustion?* Discoveries of 130-foot-long boa constrictors and twelve-foot giant kangaroos.  What other species have gone undiscovered?*In England, a town is pelted from the sky by hundreds of tiny rose-colored frogs.  Is this a one-time event, an omen, or a bizarre natural phenomenon? Near-death experiences...lake monsters...crop circles...fairies...visions of the Virgin Mary...Using his vast research and privileged access to case files, noted paranormal investigator Mike Dash has compiled this unprecedented collection of the most baffling puzzles of our time. Touring the globe and sifting through a vast array of eyewitness accounts and film and photographic evidence, Dash separates genuine cases from hoaxes and dares to record those macabre, inexplicable, and terrifying events where there is no other explanation except--that what people saw, heard, and sometimes lived to tell about is true!

Random House Publishing Group

Sm Octavo, 1999, PP.298, The Story Of The Worlds Most Coveted Flower &amp; The Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Europe

Victor Gollancz

When the Dutch East Indiaman Batavia struck an uncharted reef off the new continent of Australia on her maiden voyage in 1629, 332 men, women and children were on board. While some headed off in a lifeboat to seek help, 250 of the survivors ended up on a tiny coral island less than half a mile long. A band of mutineers, whose motives were almost beyond comprehension, then started on a cold-blooded killing spree, leaving fewer than 80 people alive when the rescue boat arrived three months later. BATAVIA'S GRAVEYARD tells this strange story as a gripping narrative structured around three strong principal characters: Francisco Pelsaert, the cultivated but weak-willed captain; Jeronimus Cornelisz, a sinister apothecary with a terrifying personal philosophy influenced by Rosicrucianism who set himself up as the ruler of the island; and Wiebbe Hayes, the only survivor with the courage to fight Jeronimus's band.  The background to these events, including the story of the Dutch East India Company, and the discovery of Australia, is richly drawn.

Batavia's Graveyard - The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny

World

Crown, Publishers

Amsterdam, 1637 For the cost of a single tulip bulb you could buy: four oxen or twelve sheep or twenty-four tons of wheat or two hogsheads of wine or two tons of butter or four barrels of beer or a thousand pounds of cheese or a silver drinking cup or an oak bed or a ship. In the 1630s, visitors to the prosperous trading cities of the Netherlands couldn't help but notice that thousands of normally sober, hardworking Dutch citizens from every walk of life were caught up in an extraordinary frenzy of buying and selling. The object of this unprecedented speculation was the tulip, a delicate and exotic Eastern import that had bewitched horticulturists, noblemen, and tavern owners alike. A trade in tulips soon evolved, and for almost a year rare bulbs changed hands for incredible and ever-increasing sums, until single flowers were being sold for more than the cost of a house. Historians would come to call it tulipomania. It was the first futures market in history -- and like all the ones that would follow, it crashed spectacularly, plunging speculators and investors into economic ruin and despair. But that was not the first instance of tulipomania -- nor would it be the last. This is the history of the tulip, from its origins on the barren windswept steppes of central Asia, to its place of honor in the lush imperial gardens of Constantinople, to its starring moment as the most coveted -- and beautiful -- commodity in Europe. Historian Mike Dash vividly narrates the story of this amazing flower and the colorful cast of characters whose lives were inextricably entwined with it. There is the eccentric Turkish sultan Ahmed III, whose reign even to this day is known as the Tulip Era, and the French academic Carolus Clusius, the most respected botanist of his time, whose gifts of the then-unknown bulbs to friends and patrons sparked the Dutch tulipomania. There's even the lowly tavern owner Wouter Winkel, whose death in 1633 left his seven children destitute -- until they dug up his bed of tulip bulbs and sold them at auction during the height of the tulip mania, an auction that transformed his heirs from penniless orphans to wealthy young men and women who would never have to work a day in their lives. Centuries apart historically, and worlds apart culturally, this cast of characters all had one thing in common: tulipomania.

Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Americas

Crown

From the bestselling author of Tulipomania comes Batavia’s Graveyard, the spellbinding true story of mutiny, shipwreck, murder, and survival. It was the autumn of 1628, and the Batavia, the Dutch East India Company’s flagship, was loaded with a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java. The Batavia was the pride of the Company’s fleet, a tangible symbol of the world’s richest and most powerful commercial monopoly. She set sail with great fanfare, but the Batavia and her gold would never reach Java, for the Company had also sent along a new employee, Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a bankrupt and disgraced man who possessed disarming charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, Jeronimus soon sparked a mutiny that seemed certain to succeed—but for one unplanned event: In the dark morning hours of June 3, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The commander of the ship and the skipper evaded the mutineers by escaping in a tiny lifeboat and setting a course for Java—some 1,800 miles north—to summon help. Nearly all of the passengers survived the wreck and found themselves trapped on a bleak coral island without water, food, or shelter. Leaderless, unarmed, and unaware of Jeronimus’s treachery, they were at the mercy of the mutineers. Jeronimus took control almost immediately, preaching his own twisted version of heresy he’d learned in Holland’s secret Anabaptist societies. More than 100 people died at his command in the months that followed. Before long, an all-out war erupted between the mutineers and a small group of soldiers led by Wiebbe Hayes, the one man brave enough to challenge Jeronimus’s band of butchers. Unluckily for the mutineers, the Batavia’s commander had raised the alarm in Java, and at the height of the violence the Company’s gunboats sailed over the horizon. Jeronimus and his mutineers would meet an end almost as gruesome as that of the innocents whose blood had run on the small island they called Batavia’s Graveyard. Impeccably researched and beautifully written, Batavia’s Graveyard is the next classic of narrative nonfiction, the book that secures Mike Dash’s place as one of the finest writers of the genre.

Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny

Australia & Oceania

In 1628 the Dutch East India Company loaded the Batavia, the flagship of its fleet, with a king’s ransom in gold, silver, and gems for her maiden voyage to Java; the ship itself was a tangible symbol of the world’s richest and most powerful monopoly. The company also sent along a new employee to guard its treasure. He was Jeronimus Corneliszoon, a disgraced and bankrupt man with great charisma and dangerously heretical ideas. With the help of a few disgruntled sailors, he hatched a plot to seize the ship and her riches. The mutiny might have succeeded, but in the dark morning hours of June 3, 1629, the Batavia smashed through a coral reef and ran aground on a small chain of islands near Australia. The captain and skipper escaped the wreck, and in a tiny lifeboat they set sail for Java—some 1,500 miles north—to summon help. More than 250 frightened survivors waded ashore, thankful to be alive. Unfortunately, Jeronimus and the mutineers had survived too, and the nightmare was only beginning.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by DASH, MIKE. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by DASH, MIKE

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by DASH, MIKE. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder and The Birth of the American Mafia

The First Family: Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder, and the Birth of the American Mafia

BORDERLANDS

Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown

Borderlands: The Ultimate Exploration of the Unknown

Tulipomania : The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Batavia's Graveyard - The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny

Tulipomania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused

Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny

Batavia's Graveyard: The True Story of the Mad Heretic Who Led History's Bloodiest Mutiny