Cosa Nostra never grows old: traditional godfathers and young bosses change with the times. This is why the Sicilian Mafia has dominated the public debate for one hundred and fifty years, from unification to the present day. The first historian to write on Cosa Nostra drawing on extensive field research and original documents, Salvatore Lupo recounts the long criminal history of the Mafia. Interviewed by Gaetano Savatteri, journalist and writer on Sicilian affairs, Lupo gives a lucid analysis of the phenomenon, sweeping away tired rhetoric and hackneyed prejudices, and identifying the victories, weaknesses and errors of the anti-Mafia front.
"For too long, we have told ourselves the fairytale that the Mafia was the child of underdevelopment. Then we inverted the terms of the discourse, saying that underdevelopment was the child of the Mafia. But both propositions are erroneous. The Mafia is the child of modernity."
A new interpretation of the dark days of Italian history, in a rigorous and unprecedented overview of the past and present of Cosa Nostra through an account of its business dealings, its enigmas, its relations with politics and the State.